Yours Must Ransom Me
by MlleClaudine
Summary: Why Lenara left... Dax/Kahn, but not quite as you might expect. Takes place during and around and considerably before Season 4's "Rejoined" and also presumes that the reader remembers roughly the sequence of events in the episode. Rated T for the mildest possible M/F, F/F and slugslash. Feedback as always is greatly appreciated!
1. Yours Must Ransom Me: Chapter 1

Out of the corner of my eye I can see my colleagues exchange glances. Hanor and Aruel say nothing, though, ostensibly collating and prioritizing the teraquads of data we've gathered over the past week.

The data! We've made stupendous progress; the artificial wormhole experiment had been far more successful than I could have even hoped for. With a slight suppression in the phase variance of the generated tetryon field, even the near-disaster that had almost destroyed the _Defiant_ could be averted the next time...

There would not be a next time, I forcibly remind myself. Not for me, at least, or anyway not under the same circumstances.

Circumstances. Now there's an understatement.

Would she think me a coward, unfeeling, a hypocrite? No. She would not, and that was the worst of it.

Rubbing my temples helps a bit, but not enough to dispel the tension headache that had settled behind my eyes even before we had left the station. _Think about something else, anything else. Calm, you are calm. The air you breathe out sinks into the floor and you become lighter and lighter..._ Gradually I become aware of a delicious, familiarly spicy scent.

I open my eyes to look up at my big little brother. He smiles as he holds out to me a large steaming mug.

The roughhewn sandstone rasps pleasantly against my palms, imparting its heat to my hands. I blow a puff of air across the murky surface of the liquid to activate the spores, then sniff the rich fruity tones with their hint of muskiness. "Mmm... just right. Where the hell did you manage to find real balso at this time of year?"

"Er." Bejal shifts on his feet. "Had it in cryo at home. Brought it along to celebrate... "

No need to finish the sentence. Despite the experiment's stunning success, there would be no celebration.

I try to lighten the mood a bit. "Rather presumptuous of you, wasn't it? What if we had failed utterly and were slinking back in disgrace, our reputations in shambles, with no means of duplicating the results and, the gods forbid, no hope of further funding?"

Silence. "You did what you had to do, Lenara," he replies, to what I had not said, briefly resting his hand on my shoulder. With that, he leaves, ducking through the doorway of the lab.

_You did what you had to do._

Not, "You did the right thing," or, "It was for the best." He knows better than to say that out loud, though I know that that's what he's thinking. On some level he does understand, as does Hanor, but fundamentally he cannot _know. _And I can no more explain it to him than I could describe telepathy to the mindblind.

I set the computer reenactment of the experimental data to run on continuous replay and let my brain subconsciously absorb the patterns of equations while the contents of the mug at my elbow slowly cool...

* * *

"Have you _completely_ lost your mind?"

Certainly a novel way to start the day. Hadn't even had my kalaba yet, and there was my research partner practically bursting through the vidcomm, straining so far forward at his desk that his onscreen image was distorted. We had worked together for the better part of fifteen years; not exactly friends, we knew one another well. It would take something cataclysmic for him to be this perturbed. "And a good morning to you, Hanor." I saluted him with a honeycake that was still semisolid from the thermovect and took a big bite.

He gathered himself into some semblance of his usual calm. "I'm sorry, Lenara, your message just caught me off guard. Requesting that the initial run be carried out at DS9... are you sure that's wise?"

"Wise? It's essential!" On the sibilant a fat crumb flew onto the screen right where the tip of his nose was and his eyes crossed as he inadvertently examined it; stifling the urge to laugh, I wiped it off. "The Bajoran wormhole is the only known stable wormhole in existence. We have to take telemetry from it in conjunction with our assays. See if we've truly discovered a new principle or are simply reproducing a common mechanism."

Hanor's gaze did not quite meet mine. "You know what I mean."

"Space-sickness acting up again? You know, that funny little buzzing device you tried last trip makes a really nice -– "

"Lenara!"

I sighed. "I know, Hanor, I'm sorry. It's just that I honestly can't see what the fuss is about."

"Can't see... You mean, other than the fact that reassociation is one of the oldest prohibitions in the book? And that your former spouse happens to be a member of the senior staff aboard that station, and that you would be working in close proximity with her for over a week? No, I can't imagine why there would be any 'fuss' at all."

"Emphasis on _working_, Doctor Pren. The Commission know that I've communicated with Dax exactly once in the last ninety years, and that since then I've had no contact with or even knowledge of it."

Not exactly true. Jadzia diKaela's face had been all over the newsnets when she'd been joined with Dax; washing out of and then being reaccepted into the initiate program was an unheard-of event. And for the last three years or so, keeping an eye out for the stream of journal articles that issued from DS9's science officer had become a hangnail of a habit; the articles focused on a variety of arcana ranging from the bizarre mating behavior of a species of Bajoran amphibian to strategic analyses of the indescribable Ferengi game of Tongo.

"So personal interest had nothing whatsoever to do with your decision."

"This is a scientific mission, remember? I have no intention of resurrecting the ghosts of century-old passions."

Hanor's lips thinned. "Then you won't mind if I lead the team and run the tests on my own. What better way to be sure they're completely impartial? Think of it as a double-blind trial. You could take a vacation -– "

"Dammit, Hanor, this is _my_ project, _my_ theories and, may I remind you, _my_ fucking year and a half spent kissing government ass to get the funding for this little jaunt. I'll be damned if I'll rot on a beach while someone else oversees the results of my work!"

His head rocked back and to one side. Not used to outbursts like that from me, I supposed; for that matter, neither was I. "Lenara, the Symbiosis Commission -– "

"Has no jurisdiction over the Science Ministry."

"I realize that, but they still have approval for public domain funding allocated to Ministry projects."

"Which I've just received. Credit transfer went through early this morning."

"I see." A cool pause. "Thank you for informing me."

I felt a shiver of guilt. His stake in this mission was nearly as big as mine, after all, and if the Commission had refused... "I'm sorry, Hanor, I should have told you right away. But the fiduciary subcommittee were in session well into the night, and -– "

"Lenara. It's all right. I just want to make sure you know what you're doing."

"Hey, I'm a big girl. And a very old worm. You'd think that after twelve hundred years and over twenty lifetimes the universe would be simply crawling with my former lovers and family members, but I've somehow managed to avoid stepping on them until now."

Hanor smiled tightly; he never did quite appreciate my sense of humor. But the set of his mouth relaxed by degrees, and at last he eased back into a normal position in his chair. "Of course. It just seems as though you've spent an awful lot of time and thought justifying how insignificant this meeting will be."

Touché. "I can handle it. Trust me."

After some comparatively pedestrian conversation during which we hashed out a few administrative details, Hanor signed off. I checked my transmission queue for messages. There was only one, an official communiqué from the Commission stating that Bejal had been recalled from his teaching post at Taroonin University and assigned to my team. "I am sure you will agree, Dr. Kahn," said Legislator Mardel, a balding, pinch-mouthed man who had been one of the more vocal dissenters against my petition, "that the mission will benefit from Dr. Otner's expertise."

Expertise in handholding, maybe. They knew perfectly well Bejal's field was xenomicrobiology, not temporal wave-particle energy dynamic theory. What were they thinking? He would be qualified only for tasks that could be handled just as well or better by a specially trained tech. Too bright not to know why he was there, he would feel out of place, once again eclipsed by his sister. But there was nothing to be done about it, and really, it would be nice to spend some time with him; we seldom saw one another these days.

So I would have my shadow, but I would be allowed to go, and that was the important thing.


	2. Yours Must Ransom Me: Chapter 2

An annoyingly pleasant computer voice welcomed us to Federation Station Deep Space Nine and announced that we had docked at Upper Pylon One. Red lights on the comm panel blinked to green as the airlock pressure equalized. Hanor offered me a hand with my bag, but I shook my head at him and hung back; shrugging, he exited as the heavy door rolled aside. "I'm Dr. Hanor Pren of the Trill Science Ministry," I heard him say to someone; a female voice answered. Bejal waggled his eyebrows and gestured with exaggerated courtliness. I made a face at him, then followed him through the airlock in time to hear the woman say, "And this is our Science Officer, Commander Dax."

Hanor introduced us in turn and I nodded mechanically. My peripheral vision took in the other two officers, a slim auburn-haired Bajoran and a massive glowering Klingon, but my gaze locked on to the third. I found myself moving forward, drawn toward shining blue eyes.

Dax took my hand in hers. It was cold, of course. Stupid to expect otherwise, but for a microsecond I was faintly disappointed. "It's been a long time."

"Yes, it has." _Oh, astound the woman with your eloquence, Lenara._

Vaguely aware that she had been holding on to my hand a little too long, a little too tightly, I reluctantly freed it and willed myself not to look back as Lieutenant Worf led the way to my team's quarters.

Half my mind paid enough attention to the Klingon's perfunctory tour to be able to ask equally perfunctory questions as we traversed the Promenade. The other half fizzed along, trying to work out why my heart was pounding so hard I could feel the pulse in my eyeballs.

It was not simply a matter of mutual attraction, though certainly she was beautiful; the netcast vids had not done her justice. And the grace of her movements and the strength in those hands hinted at a more robust physicality than her appearance might suggest.

No, it was infinitely more troubling than that. Kahn had known Dax at once; even without the telltale spots marking her as a Trill there would have been no question as to who she was. I could hardly have ignored the visceral pull of their brief telepathic connection -– which meant that Jadzia had felt it too.

It was going to be a long week.

* * *

A muted beep intruded into my jumble of thoughts, pausing the brush midstroke through a length of hair. "Come in."

Bejal entered, stiff and self-conscious in his formal tunic. "Aren't you ready yet? We're supposed to be there in five minutes."

"Dearest brother, haven't you been to enough official functions to know that if you actually show up on time you get collared by the dullest person present and wind up having to make painful small talk with him for the rest of the evening?" But I hurried through the rest of my toilet and, despite my apprehensions, the Captain's quarters were overflowing with guests when we arrived just past the hour. Most of my team were already there, as were a number of Starfleet and Bajoran officers and Sisko himself, who broke away from a small group and came over to greet us.

"Welcome, Dr. Kahn, Dr. Otner." His voice was a beautifully modulated baritone, his manner impeccable, and unlike most of his officers he looked right at home in his dress uniform. An impressive man, well suited to command.

"Captain. I want to thank you for letting us carry out our experiments here. I can't emphasize enough how immensely valuable the data will be for our project."

"It is entirely my pleasure. Creating an artificial wormhole sounds intriguing, and of course if you do succeed it will have profound effects on space travel as we know it. Besides, the old man would've killed me if I'd refused."

"The 'old man'?"

He ducked his head, looking suddenly like a small embarrassed boy; an amusing reaction in such an imposing figure. "Curzon Dax was a very close friend of mine. It's a little joke between Jadzia and me."

I laughed. "I never did meet him. He was always off-planet on some diplomatic mission or other and our paths never crossed."

"Quite the hell-raiser, from what I hear," Bejal said.

"That's putting it mildly." Sisko smiled, a flash of startling warmth that transformed his stern face. "Fortunately for me, our science officer is a bit more responsible and a lot less impulsive. Not that that doesn't keep her from showing up late to parties."

I had noticed. "Torias was constitutionally incapable of being punctual; maybe all that time I was yelling at him, I should have been blaming the symbiont."

Both pairs of eyes narrowed in concert at the mention of Torias' name. "Here's your coordinating crew, Dr. Kahn," said Sisko, motioning to Worf and Kira. "I believe you've all met. If you'll pardon me, I've got to do the host thing." He nodded at us, then moved to the center of the floor, his mellifluous voice soon ringing overhead.

We acknowledged polite applause at the appropriate times and chatted about the mission, about Klingons, about nothing in particular. I concentrated on staying focused on the conversation, but even without seeing Bejal slide a look over my shoulder and surreptitiously track someone keeping to the periphery of the room I would have known when _she_ had arrived.

She was here.

"Dr. Kahn?"

A tap on my elbow. To my chagrin I realized I hadn't heard a word Kira had just said. "I'm so sorry, Major. About the staffing requirements -– "

Leaning toward me, she murmured, "Dr. Kahn. If your eyes rotate any farther you'll be looking through the back of your head." Kira smiled, wryly sympathetic. "Go on, it's been so long and she's dying to talk to you. It's not like you haven't got a hundred chaperones in here; what could it hurt?"

Oh, please, not another romantic. But Kira was right; besides, avoiding her would only stir up even more gossip._ And the Elders would have no lack for witnesses if they decided to call an ad hoc standards infraction hearing_, I thought sardonically, drifting as casually as possible toward the buffet table where Dax had moored herself. Everyone, even the Bajorans, turned to watch me curiously as I passed. Was there anyone on board the station who didn't know? Gods, they must have had a seminar.

Evidently there was something fascinating at the bottom of that serving dish. But then her posture shifted subtly and there was an audible catch in her breath.

"Well, this looks wonderful." _Lenara, we have **got** to work on your opening lines..._

"Mmhmm."

"I take it most of this is Bajoran."

Still not looking at me, Dax pointed out certain dishes, which smelled appetizing but looked mostly like mush in varying shades of beige. "Hasperaat... no, hasperaat, moba fruit, and veklava."

"Of course, I'm not the least bit hungry."

"Neither am I."

I peeked over my shoulder. A few outright stares, several dozen quickly averted heads -– whoops, there went a drink into a potted tree. Ordinarily this would have been quite funny. "But I suppose we should load up our plates, since the whole room is watching us."

One eyebrow swooped up eloquently as she made her own leisurely surveillance. "Quite an audience."

"Seems a shame to disappoint them. Maybe we should do something."

"Well, we could get into a screaming match and start throwing things at each other."

"Not bad. Or I suppose we could throw ourselves at each other, profess our undying love for each other in complete disregard for Trill society," I found myself saying.

She smiled. "Dr. Pren would probably have a heart attack."

I released the breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding. "Forget about him, my brother's head would explode. He's been a nervous wreck ever since we arrived."

"I know the feeling," she muttered.

"Well, I'll tell you what I told him. We're both mature adults and we can handle this." _Right, Lenara. That's why you're blathering and acting about as sophisticated as a schoolgirl on her first date_.

"I agree completely. It'll be fine."

I took another look. "They're watching us again."

"I know. I guess we'll probably have to get used to it."

"Well," I said, loudly this time, for the benefit of any credulous ears that might be within range, remote as that possibility was, "thank you, Commander Dax. I appreciate your insightful commentary on Bajoran cuisine."

"My pleasure, Dr. Kahn."

I crossed the room, a little more assured. Jadzia certainly knew how to play the discretion game. Possibly a legacy from Curzon, though from all accounts his approach to diplomacy hadn't so much pushed the envelope as stretched it to molecular thinness. Certainly this composed, centered self-control would have been utterly alien to Torias. When I reached the far corner I allowed myself another glance back.

And felt a palpable blow in my gut. Her face blazed with a possessiveness and naked longing that I knew down to my bones. I wrenched my eyes away.

The rest of the evening we spent resolutely apart in an oddly formal dance choreographed by acute awareness of the other's presence.


	3. Yours Must Ransom Me: Chapter 3

The door alert sounded, giving me a flimsy but welcome excuse to toss the datapadd aside. Slumping back into a pile of cushions on the sofa, I rubbed my temples. "Come in. If you expect me to reschedule you too, you overgrown bush ape, I'm going to throw you into an airlock with the rest of the crew and depressurize it myself."

"I surrender!"

Definitely not my brother's voice. I flung my arms over my face in mock shame and peered between my elbows. "Hello, Jadzia."

She plunked herself down at the other end of the sofa and crossed long legs on the low table in front of it after clearing the corner with a careful nudge from her ankle. "Here I find you making diabolical plans to do away with your people when you should be out celebrating with them. No wonder they say that science has lost its allure."

"Very funny. DS9 keeps to Bajoran time and the shorter day is causing all kinds of problems. Most of the team aren't experienced spacers. I'm having to work out staggered shifts between them and the Starfleet personnel so no one falls asleep in the middle of something critical."

Jadzia snorted. "Good luck. I've been here for almost four Terran years and I still haven't totally adjusted. I usually wind up playing Tongo at Quark's or running experiments for most of the night and taking naps in my lab during the day. Half the station crew believe I never sleep."

"You always were a night hawk, darling," I said without thinking.

"Well," she said after the briefest of pauses, "thank goodness for raktajino. I'm pretty sure I've replaced my blood with it several times over."

Silently I thanked her for her tact. "You actually drink that stuff? I've heard it can be used to strip old molyenamel off duraplast."

"You'd need to dilute it first."

"I'll take your word for that. Was there something you wanted to ask me about?"

"Hmm? Oh, yes, about tomorrow's trial. You've established that you can sustain the artificial wormhole's integrity, even if only briefly. What would you think about sending in a Class IV probe once you've got the tensor matrix stabilized? We can tune the shields to emulate a small craft's signature; it'll give us a more realistic picture of how your wormhole will behave when an actual ship goes through."

I did some quick calculations in my head. "That's a good idea. We'd be skipping ahead a few steps but we'll get a lot better telemetry and that would have been the next variable anyway. The problem is, there's about a tenfold difference in materials cost using a Class IV probe versus a Class I and I'm not sure we could get approval from the Science Ministry in time to requisition one."

"The hell with them." Mischievous glee played over her face, tip-tilting the corners of her mouth. "I might have a way to, ah, stretch your budget a little."

"What do you mean?"

"Er... you have to promise not to ask a whole lot of questions, but I just happen to have a Class IV probe -– one of the old, really bulky ones, mind you -– umm... available."

"Jadzia Dax, what did you do, hijack a Starfleet vessel?"

"Mm, not quite. You know," she said, admiring the finish on her fingernails and carefully buffing a spot with her sleeve, "playing Tongo can be a very useful and rewarding hobby."

"I'm beginning to think I should take it up myself. But is it legally yours?"

"In the same sense that it was legal for the Ferengi I won it from to salvage the contents of a decommissioned Federation supply barge that had been designated for detonation."

"Meaning he actually sneaked on board a ship full of live mines -– "

"No sneaking involved. The crew had stripped nearly everything out of there and left a warning beacon with a three-kilometer radius, so I guess they felt any further safeguards were unnecessary."

" -– and defused them just so he could pick over the contents?"

"Well, he didn't actually defuse them, just -– "

"Did his shopping and then ran like hell?"

"Sort of."

I blew out a long breath. "That is amazingly stupid... but I have to admit it would take a lot of guts."

"The Ferengi are like that; they'll take even the biggest risk if they feel there's a profit in it somewhere."

"You admire them?"

"Well, not necessarily the mercenary -– not to mention misogynistic -– aspects of their culture... but yes, I do. I like their willingness to lay everything out on the line in pursuit of their goals."

"Seems like I've heard that somewhere." I gave her an arch look, to which she responded with an absurd batting of her eyelashes. "So what did he get out of the deal?"

She shrugged. "I didn't turn him in. And I pretended not to notice while he made fleghur-mox with my knee under the table all through the next round."

"Jadzia, it's not that I don't appreciate the offer, but don't you think someone's going to wonder how a large and rather sensitive piece of Federation property wound up being used in a Trill science experiment?"

"Obsolete Federation property. Why should they? They're certainly not interested in how it's being used now."

"How it's... I'm almost afraid to ask."

"Lenara, anyone who cared enough to bother to trace it could easily have found out it's been sitting in my quarters for months." Jadzia gave me a thoroughly naughty grin; for a few fleeting seconds I was joltingly reminded of Torias.

"In your quarters?"

"It makes a great coffee table and I'll admit that I'm somewhat attached to it, but I think I could sacrifice it in the interests of research and the furthering of knowledge for the greater good. Say the word and it's yours."

I had to laugh.


	4. Yours Must Ransom Me: Chapter 4

_There is nothing going on._

_ We're both mature adults and we can handle this._

The evidence would seem to indicate otherwise, Dr. Kahn.

The windows slanted outward, away from where I sat crosslegged on the floor. I leaned forward to brace my forehead against space-cold transparency. The awkward angle strained my neck and lower back savagely, but only the faint fog from my breath spoiled the illusion that I was floating in star-strewn blackness, cradled between the vast limbs of the station that thrust out far below me.

I'd stormed off to her quarters to vent righteous indignation and wound up in her arms, putting up about as much resistance as a dulcefly to honey.

The stupefying softness of her lips, foreign and yet fumbling toward an utterly familiar rhythm. The scent of her enveloping me, a hint of perfume overlying the subtly different yet still recognizable essence. The long-dormant link awakening, intensifying into an electrifying roar that threatened to consume us both.

Breaking the kiss left me gasping, trying not to cling to her while I found my balance. Somehow I managed to stagger from the room, feeling like an errant comet escaping the inexorable embrace that would plunge it into the heart of the sun.

No point in staying angry at Bejal, who after all had only pointed out in his not-quite-tactful way what was apparently glaringly obvious to everyone but me. The very vehemence of my reaction to his comments should have been a warning in itself.

It didn't help that Dax didn't seem to be conflicted at all. No hesitation, no doubt, only an unequivocal willingness to throw herself -– and me, along with her -– off the cliff. And just now, when she had moved to kiss me, I found I was terrified not by what she was doing, but by how much I wanted her to do it.

How the hell was I going to get through the rest of the week when every look she gave me felt like a physical caress, setting off small tremors down my spine and turning my knees to water? And with my too-zealous brother now scrutinizing our every move...

I imagined the Commission hearing that would be called if we were found out. _"We have assembled in order to investigate the charge that the party of the first part did violate past-joined protocol by sucking face with the party of the second part. The defendants seek clemency on the grounds that no tongue was involved."_

Despite myself, I snickered. "It's not funny, Lenara," I said aloud. Maybe Hanor was right about my sense of humor.

Twelve hundred years' aggregate experience disclosed no acceptable basis on which to rationalize what had just happened. In twenty-two lifetimes, never once had I felt compelled to disobey that most inviolable of the tenets I had sworn to uphold as a joined Trill. Arrogant to assume that I never would, but reassociation truly had never tempted me before. Preposterous to consider it now -– after all, Jadzia Dax was essentially a complete unknown, even though, as she said herself, she and I had far more in common than Nilani and Torias ever did -– but that the idea should even occur to me was profoundly disturbing.

And what disturbed me more than anything was that, analyze it though I might, I could not identify the extent to which the feelings, impulses and decisions leading up to this point belonged to Kahn or to Lenara, or to the even murkier amalgamation of both.

Damn her, and damn me. Whoever the hell that might be now.


	5. Yours Must Ransom Me: Chapter 5

Nilani was to pass Kahn to me after an extraordinarily long hosting, having lived almost as long as an unjoined. According to custom, convergence was observed the day before the implantation ceremony was to take place.

I met her in one of the luxurious flats the Commission maintained for departing hosts. A silent attendant admitted me through the massive door, a gargantuan wooden anachronism that actually opened on hinges and swept majestically home with a muffled thud. The stone floor of the entranceway amplified the sound of my footsteps, syncopated testament to my nervousness, which were abruptly silenced when I reached the carpeted greatroom. Glancing around, I took in the high ceilings, the well-appointed furnishings, the curving walls with their wide windows that afforded views of the park and gardens below. The effect was elegant, tasteful -– and utterly impersonal.

"Not a bad place to hold a deathwatch, don't you think?" An antigrav servo whined faintly as my placeholder emerged from a darkened corner hallway. The support chair whispered to a stop. For a long moment we said nothing and simply regarded one another.

Nearly a hundred and twenty years old, Nilani Kahn was spare, frail, her skin waxily translucent in the sunlight slanting across her face. The trembling hands that manipulated the chair's controls were ropy with milky blue veins, gnarled but also curiously smooth, like water‑polished knots of driftwood. But the wide golden‑brown eyes were still clear and their expression suggested that there was nothing at all fragile about the mind in the failing body.

"I... wouldn't call it -– "

"Oh, come, come, no use in bandying euphemisms about. You wouldn't be here if you didn't know that by the day after tomorrow my body will have begun to shut down and that on the following day I will be quite dead."

The condescending tone irked me. "Very well. Then yes, I suppose that if one is going to die this is as pleasant a place as any to do it in."

"That's better. Sit, please." She indicated a large overstuffed armchair, which turned out to be as comfortable as it looked; if I'd been alone with a pile of litpadds at hand I would have willingly spent the rest of the day curled up in it. The bright eyes narrowed, inspecting me at length. "You're very young."

"Twenty-one next eighthmonth. You were almost as young when you were joined."

"Yes. They like to do that with the older symbionts."

Again an awkward silence. I tried another approach. "I feel very fortunate to have been chosen -– "

"It's an immense honor, you're humbled and thrilled, awed by the chance to be connected to so much history, and so on, and so on." The voice could have sucked the water from a Breen saltflat.

"I did mean it, you know," I said carefully.

"Yes, I do know." Something that might be called a smile corrugated one corner of her mouth. "You've been well trained. I expect you're also highly intelligent, consistently in the top rank of the initiate program, mature for your age, psychologically stable, independent yet sociable, sober yet not a prig, modest and unassuming yet not spineless. But of course you would be -– they wouldn't give Kahn to you otherwise."

I stared. "I'm sorry, have I offended you?"

She appeared not to have heard. "And another bloody scientist. Kahn's had a few dancers and gymnasts, and Varel was a sculptor, though his work was never significantly received beyond his host-lifetime, but most of us have been scientists. Different fields, of course, but you'd think they would learn to liven up the mix a bit."

Her work with her husband Noren Garet in symbiont haptics was renowned, her later detour into quantum nanobiology almost legendary, yet here she was dismissing her accomplishments with the same disregard she had thus far shown me. I had so many questions to ask, so many concerns that I'd hoped she could allay. But there was no way I could share them with this bitter old woman.

At last looking at me rather than through me, she said, somewhat diffidently, "I've some holos -– mostly personal ones, nothing terribly exciting. Would you like to see them?"

I nodded, relieved at the more innocuous direction of our conversation. And even if politeness hadn't prompted me to do so, I would have said yes at the opportunity to get a glimpse at her part of the heritage that was to be mine. Kahn's official file had been made available to me when I'd been accepted, of course, but it told little beyond the sterile facts -– though there were certainly enough of those.

A case sitting on the low glass table housed an old-fashioned holoviewer: statics only, no mocap or even sound. Small containers in the padded inner section held dozens of data chips which proved to be essentially a chronological record of her eight-decade marriage to Garet, the mild-mannered unjoined twenty years her senior, who had been first her research supervisor and later her partner in all senses of the term. There was genuine fondness in the cracking voice as she narrated the events depicted, methodically vidding the chips one by one. The date-sequenced images ended abruptly about fifteen years ago, from the time of his death; Nilani, I knew, had gone into virtual seclusion, appearing rarely at scientific symposia to give readings and lectures but otherwise not venturing out in any public sort of capacity.

When we had gone through them all, she hesitated before bringing out one last chip from a separate compartment in the case. She frowned at it, then with a tiny shrug slotted it into place. No explanatory preamble or commentary; with her tacit permission I booted the viewer.

The chip contained not a well-documented series like the others but rather a few holograms from widely disparate settings of a very young Nilani and a darkly handsome laughing young man. They appeared to be totally absorbed with one another; image after image showed them staring into the other's eyes, always touching, sometimes in postures so frankly erotic that suddenly, absurdly, I felt as though I were intruding.

The official file had stated that she'd been married briefly before her marriage to Garet, but there had been only a name and the barest skeleton of a background.

"This... was Torias?"

She did not answer and I thought that perhaps she was ignoring me again. Finally she reached over and tapped in a command to bring up a different holo of the young man, now in a gray flightsuit, poised confidently outside the access hatch of a very ugly squat little ship. "Yes," she said finally. "This was taken the day he died. An hour before, as a matter of fact, or so they tell me."

"Oh!" Her voice and expression gave absolutely no clue as to what she was feeling. "How, ah, how long were you together?"

"Nearly a year. Married as well as core-bonded for most of that."

Nothing in the record indicated that the _symbionts_ had been joined as well. "Not a very long time," I managed to say, stunned.

"No." One quivering finger traced in midair the outline of the smiling face. "Hardly any time at all."

"What happened?"

"The dragon got him." Nilani regarded me wryly, the first hint of humor she'd shown. "No, I'm not going feeble-minded. 'Dragon' was the codename of the shuttlecraft he was testing; as you can see, the name was appropriate. It was to be the prototype for an entirely new line of ships -– new powerplant design, new impulse engine configuration, everything. As usual production was pushed forward far too quickly and they sent it out long before they should have. The stability generators failed immediately after launch; its altitude was so low and it augered in so quickly that he didn't even have time to eject. By the time they reached him he was already brain-dead. But of course as he was so young the Commission hadn't yet begun to consider candidates for a replacement host, so for months afterward while they searched, his body was artificially maintained to support Dax."

"How terrible!"

"Yes. I was allowed to see him only once, shortly after the accident, and then only because there was some problem with Torias' isoboramine level that was affecting the symbiont -– they were afraid that Dax was becoming unstable. So they summoned me, though I'm still not certain what it is they expected. Impossible to connect that broken body with the man I loved. I... don't know how long I went on, but I do remember it ended badly. At some point Dax severed the telepathic link and I found I had been venting my anger and frustration on the poor Guardian who had been acting as liaison." The brown eyes returned from wherever her emotional shipwreck had taken her and focused back on me. "You're not married?"

"Erm, no. Perhaps eventually."

"Any serious relationships?"

This was beginning to sound like just about every conversation I had had with my mother over the past few years. "Not in some time," I said neutrally.

"Good. Then let me tell you something that will save you a great deal of heartache later." A small, cool hand grasped my forearm with a surprisingly strong grip as she leaned toward me. "You must accept that you cannot fundamentally change anyone, least of all yourself."

"Well... thank you. I'll remember that."

She shook her head brusquely. "Don't humor me, girl. It may not make sense now but it will someday. And I don't think you'll thank me then."


	6. Yours Must Ransom Me: Chapter 6

Why did the Symbiosis Commission have to decorate everything in the same thuddingly dull color? If that was what you could call brownish gray. Mud gray. Swamptoad-underbelly gray. It was almost as though they had tried to recreate the symbionts' native environment aboveground; as far as Nilani was concerned, they'd succeeded. Perhaps the slugs found it comforting but for the hosts -– at least this particular potential one -– the unbroken monotony of the Institute's main waiting room was just plain depressing. _They could at least give you something to read..._

The long wait and the surroundings were intended to allow her to enter a calm, meditative state, she knew, but for as long as she had been coming to the required interviews she'd been simply bored. This would be the fifth and final session, during which she would learn at last to which symbiont she was to be joined. As before, the chamber was empty. She sighed, wondering yet again if this were some kind of perverse test.

Nilani got up to stretch, flowing smoothly through a series of complicated positions that isolated individual muscle groups in sequence. She had just settled into the Ajano Tree, in which one bent at the waist with one's hands flat on the floor, when she realized she was no longer alone.

As she peered up through her legs she saw a grinning young man, arms akimbo, staring appreciatively at the view her stance -– and the snug-fitting black standard issue jumpsuit -– afforded him. Immediately she stood, swaying a little as the blood rushed from her head, and spun to face him.

The impression of size she'd gotten from her brief upside-down perspective was deceiving: though strongly built, of a dense muscularity, he was hardly taller than she. Bright green eyes crinkled at her.

"Please, don't let me interrupt," said the intruder, who made no effort to wipe the slightly lopsided smile off his face.

Embarrassment at being caught in such an awkwardly vulnerable position prompted her to respond stiffly. "That's quite all right; I'd nearly finished, anyway."

"Don't tell me you're shy! I should think one could find a great many advantages in being so... flexible."

Her face burned. _Damn the man_. "Are you here for a prospect interview, too?"

If anything, the smile got wider. The left side of his mouth lagged microseconds behind the right, and she realized suddenly that he must have had extensive reconstructive facial surgery at some time; they'd done an excellent job but the neurogenic cyberplants always left telltales if you knew what to look for. "Nope. Formal reprimand by the oversight committee. My second, for endangering my symbiont."

She stared at him, aghast. "How can you be so nonchalant? If you get another you could be placed under permanent in-house surveillance!"

"Been there, done that," he shrugged. "My symbiont objected, though, and got me sprung."

"Oh." A beat. "What is it that you do, that you put yourself in jeopardy so frequently?"

"I work for Eshidan Aerospace. I'm a test pilot."

"And the Commission actually allowed you to be joined?" It was out of her mouth before she could stop it.

He laughed, clearly pleased. "Well, you see, I sort of neglected to tell them what I intended to do with my astrogation degree when I was an initiate. And then by the time they caught on, it was too late."

"Isn't that a little... irresponsible?"

" 'Foolhardy', 'arrogant' and 'incorrigible,' if the review board are to be believed. Overprotective, stuffy bastards, the lot of them."

"I see. And the traditions and rules we've followed for over a thousand years, those don't mean anything to you?"

"Oh, I just like to get under their skins a little bit. Does 'em a world of good. You'll see, when you're joined. There's being cautious -– but there's also such a thing as being suffocated."

"I see," she said again, as sternly as possible, but something in his spirit resonated irrepressibly with her own.

"Nilani diMiren, the interview committee is ready for you," announced a Guardian who had swept silently into the room.

" 'Nilani.' That's lovely."

A flush coursed through her; the name had rolled off his tongue as though he were tasting it. "Er, thank you. And you are... ?"

He pulled himself up to his full, not very considerable height and bowed, lightly supporting her wrist and bending his dark head to kiss her proffered hand; somehow his bearing and demeanor made the gesture gallant rather than ridiculously theatrical. "Torias Dax, madam, at your service. May I have the honor of your company at dinner this evening?"

"You know perfectly well I'm not allowed to leave the Institute grounds at night. Good day; it was nice meeting you." She nodded and headed toward the door where the lugubrious Guardian stood waiting.

"The commissary, then," Torias called after her. "Might even be able to stomach their so-called food as long as you're with me, though I'm not sure I can say the same for Dax. I'll be there at 20:00 hours."

"I hate to tell you this, but I don't usually eat until 22:00."

"Then I'll wait."

She didn't answer, though she sneaked a look over her shoulder just before the door whispered closed._ Insolent puppy_. But her hand still burned where he had kissed it, and she was humming when she entered the interview chamber.


	7. Yours Must Ransom Me: Chapter 7

Some wag had long ago fastened a handwritten sign that read SLAG HEAP on the door to the pilots' lounge. Nilani palmed the switchplate and stuck her head in through the entrance. "Hello?"

Her voice echoed off the hard surfaces of the empty room. Sunlight streamed through windows that dominated five of the six walls and gave an almost panoramic view of the shuttlefield. Gray-jumpsuited crewmen swarmed over the only ship in sight, a small birdlike craft that looked as though it were capable of taking flight of its own volition.

No sign of her would-be escort. She looked around, noting the careless detritus that overflowed the tables: dirty dishes, battered datapadds, instruments whose purpose she couldn't begin to guess at. Sitting in one of the low egg-shaped chairs after judiciously brushing off the seat, she picked up one of the padds and tabbed through it; some kind of manual, it was full of diagrams and charts and sections with titles like "EJ200 Engine Vibration Measurement System," "Landing and Ground Effects Estimation of Unmanned Reentry" and "The In2C Group II Hawkeye."

"Not exactly light reading for the beach, is it?"

She glanced up to see Torias Dax watching her from the doorway.

"Hello," he said, ambling over. "Here. Those chairs have a way of molding your rear end to them; they're almost impossible to get out of on your own." Nilani hitched herself forward and discovered he wasn't exaggerating. She took his outstretched hand and was startled by its warmth -– unusual in a joined Trill.

"Thank you. You're right; this won't make the bestsellers lists any time soon. Do you really have to perform 136 separate tests for each shuttle?"

"Yep. Have to write reports on every single one of those tests, too, which is the real killer. Really quite dull sometimes."

"Stalling an experimental craft in low orbit to see how it behaves on manual reentry is 'dull'? I'm not sure I'd like to know what your idea of 'exciting' is!"

"Mmm. I'd say... about 162 centimeters tall... hair like molten bronze... eyes the color of sunlit topaz... skin of palest honey... blushes furiously when complimented... "

_Damn the man!_ she thought, but had to smile. "Is that your ship outside?" she asked, pointing to the launchpad.

"Unfortunately, yes."

" 'Unfortunately'? It's beautiful!"

"Beautiful, yes; spaceworthy, no. The designers seem to have put all their efforts into aesthetics and none into performance."

"What's wrong with it?"

"For starters, she's underpowered and unevenly shielded. Shakes like you wouldn't believe before she reaches escape velocity and heats up faster than a clogged plasma injector on the way back in."

"You mean you've actually flown this thing before?"

"Oh, sure. They've made a few modifications based on my recommendations, but not nearly enough."

"But -– " she was incredulous. "But _why_?"

"Because the big money's in transitionals, shuttlecraft that can handle both atmospheric and space flight. So all the aeronautics design companies are churning out ships by the bargeload, all angling for a share of the market -– whether or not their shuttles are up to the performance requirement specs. That one," Torias gestured toward the airfield, "actually wouldn't be too bad as either a low altitude transport or a cap ship's runabout, but the shield configurations are too inflexible for the stratotropospheric pressure gradient and -– "

"No, I mean, why would you put yourself in that kind of danger? Surely you can refuse to fly it if there's such a risk?"

"I could, I suppose. But then where's the fun in that?"

* * *

"So what did you say?" Dr. Garet's voice sounded disinterested as he delicately extracted the supernatant from several rows of test tubes with a micropipette and transferred it to a flask, but she knew he was listening; he often surprised her by quoting word for word even her most casual throwaway remarks.

"What else could I say? I said he was crazy and a fool and I was damned if I was going to stay around while he turned himself into a smoking crater in the ground and stomped out of there in high dudgeon."

"But you watched."

She frowned, then sighed. "Yes, I did, from the observation tower. So did most of the flight support crew, who all but worship him; they said there wasn't another pilot on the base who would go near the bloody thing. It flew exactly the way he said it would, burned out its controls at the orbit's apogee and rained down on the ocean in tiny pieces. And when the recovery team reached his ejection pod, he was laughing."

"Laughing? He's insane!"

"Can't be. The Committee would never have allowed him to be joined." Reluctantly, she smiled at the memory. "He just seemed so... so alive."

"Hmph. Won't be for long if he keeps that up." Carefully setting a stir bar tumbling slowly in the flask, Garet gave up any pretense of indifference and straightened up to look at her directly. "What in the world do you see in him, anyway? One of these days he's going to find himself either decommissioned or dead." He peered at the expression on her face and sighed. "Hopeless. You're absolutely hopeless. You realize, of course, that if the Commission finds out you've been seeing him that they'll never let you continue the relationship once you're joined, don't you?"

"I just met the man, Noren, it's not like I'm going to spend the rest of my life with him. They won't need to know."

"Oh, they won't? Nilani, you're about to be joined to one of the first successfully implanted symbionts. Hundreds of monographs have been written on Kahn alone. You don't think you won't be under a microscope from now on?" With his round face, unruly tufts of hair and wide-eyed expression, Garet looked just like an affronted cave owl. "Don't tell me you object to the Commission's choice?"

"Noren! Of course not, it's an incredible honor! It's just... why Kahn? Why me?"

He tilted his head slightly. "Teleologically, because Kahn needs a new host. Psychologically and physiologically, because you obviously fit the parameters for a suitable replacement. Ideologically, because the many-joined symbionts are usually given to young hosts, to balance out the one's life-experience with the other's energy. But you already knew that."

"I can't help thinking about something Torias said, about being suffocated by the responsibilities and obligations of being a host. I mean, if it's that bad for the younger symbionts, what will it be like when I'm joined to Kahn?"

"What could Dax possibly know about a matter of this significance? It's only -– what, two or three hundred years old? Hasn't even completed its host cycle yet, I believe."

"Dax has had several very respectable hosts, you know. The last one was head of the Commission."

"Yes, and whatever it did to deserve that young rapscallion I cannot imagine."

Nilani rolled her eyes. "You sound like a father booga clucking over his wandering chick." Garet pursed his lips slightly, a sign of annoyance, and she checked her impulse to tease him. "Come on, I know my place in the overall scheme of things. I'm just having fun -– it's kind of nice being with someone who isn't for once trying to mold me into the perfect vessel." Glancing up, she caught sight of the chrono on the wall. "Oh! I'm late. Can we finish with this lot tomorrow, Noren? I'm having dinner with him this evening."

"By all means," Garet said dryly, watching as she emptied her pockets of their seemingly endless contents and shucked the labcoat itself, haphazardly tossing it over her desk chair. "Mr. Dax evidently must not be denied."

Waving over her shoulder, she barely noted him shaking his head as he turned his attention to shutting down the nanosequencer.


	8. Yours Must Ransom Me: Chapter 8

A barrage of grunts and moans reverberated throughout the gymnasium as Torias carried out his daily self-imposed torture. He had a tendency toward heaviness -– a disadvantage in superlight craft, whose payloads in atmospheric conditions were often severely contingent on weight limits -– which he deplored, but rather than cut down on either his eating or drinking he preferred instead to increase the intensity of his exercise regimen to a nearly violent level whenever he gained a kilo or two.

It was difficult to watch, Nilani thought, and yet fascinating. He started with a run, sprinting endless laps around the gym's track, then and up and down the stairs flanking the spectator area; thus warmed up, next came a punishing gymnastic routine that emphasized strength and flexibility; then a session of something he called plyometrics, explosive bursts of odd-looking movements that in the end left him sobbing for breath, sweat sheeting from his body like rain.

A door hissed open and a loose knot of pilots straggled out from the siegeball court, good-naturedly ragging each other over the outcome of their match. The swaggering banter halted abruptly as they caught sight of Torias, body held perfectly vertical by outstretched arms in quivering tension between a pair of rings suspended from the ceiling. Slowly, he drew his legs up until they pointed upward at a sharp angle to his body, then pressed smoothly from the V into a handstand. He held the position for a moment, then flung himself into a series of sweeping loops, spinning faster and faster, at times even letting go the rings and completing a twisting somersault in the air before catching them again.

"Fucking son of a bitch," said a reluctantly admiring voice. The pilot's immediate neighbor backhanded him in the stomach, jerking her chin toward the corner where Nilani was perched on a pile of mats. Almost in unison, the group turned to look, waved sheepishly and then moved off, the ribbing and catcalls starting up once more out in the corridor.

Nilani by this time had at least a nodding acquaintance with all of the base pilots. This particular goup comprised one of Eshidan's most tightly cohesive squadrons; though none of its members would have anything to do with Torias, they were unfailingly if distantly polite to her. It still surprised her that most of them were married, and that many had small children. She had always supposed that a profession as hazardous as theirs would attract thrillseekers and loose cannons, but though they came from varied backgrounds they were remarkably similar in character, tending to be solemn, cool-headed, conservative, austere in their habits.

Save, of course, for one glaring exception. "No wonder they dislike you so," she murmured aloud.

"Good thing he's a talented bastard with ice water in his veins. Otherwise they wouldn't put up with him for a red-hot minute." Jonah Beauchamp, Eshidan's sole Federation employee and Torias' best friend, folded his lanky frame beside her, planting elbows on knees that splayed comically in the air.

She smiled, leaning over to bump him with her shoulder and squeeze his hand. "Hello, Beach."

"Miz Nilani," he said, dragging out the syllables and adding diphthongs that normally didn't exist, which always made her laugh.

She shook her head. "I just get so frustrated with them sometimes. You'd think that these people would value ability over anything else."

"Well, sure, they do, but they're mighty particular about The Code around here."

" 'The Code'?"

"Unwritten rules binding the flying brethren and sistren. You know. Strict adherence to orders. Moderation in all things. Don't make waves -– politically, socially, officially or unofficially. And never, ever admit that you do what you do because you get a kick out of it, because it's so friggin' _fun_."

Nilani elbowed him in the ribs. "And you, of course, honor those rules with every fiber of your being. Why is it that they can't stand him but adore you?"

"Because, madam, I am the got-damnedest most diplomatic sumbitch you will ever have the misfortune to meet." Beach tipped an imaginary hat and waggled sandy brows at her. "Also just about the only Earther on the planet, and for damn sure the only Texan, so I'm allowed a few eccentricities by default. Now your boy, on the other hand -– " he whistled as the boy in question executed a particularly tricky move on the overhead bar, " -– your boy is not exactly known for his subtlety and tact. He's a born pilot and he don't apologize for the fact that what most of 'em have to work at comes easy for him. Make things worse, you got all the people who resent the fact that he's carrying a slug in his belly; that includes the ones who're just jealous, on top of the ones who think he's needlessly endangering the whatchacallit. Adds up to an awful lot of folks he don't sit too well with."

Nilani digested that. "You may be right," she said slowly.

" 'Course I am. I'd swear to it on a stack of bibles by my Momma's grave."

"I thought your mother was teaching at university on New London."

"And so she is, bless her nineteenth-century-loving heart. But she has a spot staked out in the family plot back home in Plainview and I'll swear by it and over it and around it till the cows come home."

_Cows?_ Beach's deliberately regional references and dry, rather warped sense of humor often confounded her. When they had first met, she had asked him for informal tutelage to keep her oral skills current; having taken Federation Standard as an Institute elective she spoke it capably but without idiom. Patiently, laconically, he taught her phrases that were either total nonsense or so scatalogical in nature that she blushed for days afterward thinking of the translations, which popped into her head at unfortunate moments. Beach himself was fluent in several Trill dialects thanks to years of ferocious study, though he usually imbued them with a decided drawl that intensified suspiciously when he addressed his employers and other dignitaries.

Or when he was teasing her in his own language. "I think," Nilani said severely, noting the barely suppressed laughter in the languid grey eyes, "that you are talking piffle. No wonder you and Torias get along so well."

"We Texans like ornery critters. 'Sides, he's one of the few Trills I know who doesn't speak FedStan like it leaves a bad taste in his mouth."

"I just hope he's not picking up that dreadful accent you affect."

"Why, I'll have you know this is the President's own Standard. Anyone who tells you different is a four-flushing egg-sucking barditch-dwelling sheep-herding base-on-balls liar."

"Hppp!" The giggle bubbled up without warning. Nilani smacked her friend on the arm, and they watched the rest of Torias' bizarre ritual in companionable silence.

Now he was hopping like an electroprodded frog from one end of the gym to the other, gathering himself and then uncoiling into a limb-flailing forward lunge. With a final leap, he came to a grinding upright halt, fighting for air.

His shirt was transparent with sweat, clinging to the hard planes of his torso, the dips and swells of his shoulders and arms. After a few half-hearted stretches, Torias staggered over to their corner, blearily glaring at them as they applauded and whistled.

"Are you two quite finished lazing around?" His chest heaved as he braced hands on knees.

Beach and Nilani exchanged amused glances. "Nope," said Beach. "Thought we'd set a spell longer. Watching you put yourself through your damn fool paces is a sight of work, let me tell you."

Recovering quickly, Torias straightened up. "Some of us aren't metabolic freaks who eat the most appalling garbage and still barely cast a shadow sideways," he retorted, bending over to kiss Nilani. "Mm, hello, you. Sorry if I stink."

She wrinkled her nose exaggeratedly at him, but secretly she loved the way he smelled: an impossibly rich aroma of male musk and the sharp tang of clean sweat, and beneath that the complex spicy-sweet note of the peculiar chemistry between symbiont and host. As he leaned toward her, she could feel the heat emanating from him in waves. Fascinated, she watched as a rivulet of sweat ran down the corded neck to pool in the hollow of his throat, where his pulse fluttered visibly and propelled a secondary tributary down his chest, into the cleft between rounded masses of hard muscle. Nilani swallowed, suddenly warm.

Torias left to shower and change. She watched him go, admiring the shift and play in his calves. Beach snorted, startling her, and leaned back on his elbows.

"So," he drawled, sleepy grey eyes glinting in amusement, "y'all picked out your china yet?"

Nilani looked a puzzled question at him, but he refused to answer, only chuckling to himself.


	9. Yours Must Ransom Me: Chapter 9

"Raise your elbow, please." The orderly, a Guardian acolyte, adjusted the monitoring device encircling her left upper arm, lessening the tension in the wrap and straightening out a wrinkle that had been pinching her skin.

Nilani sighed in relief. "Thank you, Cerrol; that was driving me crazy."

"You're welcome," said the orderly with a small smile. "I would have done it sooner, but -– "

"Integration quarantine rules, I know," she finished for him. "It's all right. But it's been over ninety-six hours. Surely if there were going to be any further reactions they would have occurred by now. Do I still need to be kept for observation?"

He looked up from calibrating the instruments. "Dr. Kahn, you know I can't alter the protocol."

" 'Dr. Kahn'? Oh, come on, Cerrol, we've known each other since we were children!"

Wrong thing to say, Nilani realized with a slight flush of embarrassment as something undefinable cloaked his expression. They had known each other since candidate prep... from which Cerrol Ocas, whose perpetually mournful countenance apologized in advance for his clumsiness and tongue-tied shyness, had been dismissed after the second term. His parents had reapplied over the next several cycles; by the time he had regained admission, he was already years behind his former contemporaries. After an indifferent academic career that had been dogged by a growing string of lukewarm evaluations, he voluntarily withdrew from the Institute, and she had lost contact with him until now.

"That would be disrespectful, Doctor," he admonished; she let him save face behind the formality. "If you require nothing else, your attorney will be here shortly. I will be available should you need me."

"Thank you." The orderly nodded and exited silently. Nilani settled back, grateful to be alone again. Closing her eyes, she considered once again how very odd it was that one never seemed to get inured to the strangenesses of being newly joined.

Memories not yet her own danced across her thoughts, spurring a brief swirl of vertigo-like disorientation. Falling back on the training that had consumed so much of her life thus far, she suppressed them, relegating them for further inspection later on when she had more control.

All right; start with the easiest thing to handle, the physical differences. Her hand moved to her lower abdomen, which felt awkwardly rigid and heavy. The long transverse incision, still faintly indurated and starting to itch, burned with an echo of pain when she brushed it. Hesitantly Nilani touched the firm mass now lodged within her, its shape clearly outlined beneath skin and muscle that tautened as she raised her head. The symbiont wriggled, stimulating cramps and a sudden urge to urinate. It would pass within a few weeks, she knew, while her internal architecture adjusted to the unaccustomed pressure.

Whole monographs had been written extolling the virtues and philosophies of joining. What none of them ever mentioned was that, at first, anyway, being joined felt a lot like a bad case of PMS.

_Wonder what Cerrol would say if I told him that. Probably think I was humoring him_. Nilani was still laughing to herself when the sound of a throat being cleared made her open her eyes.

A stooped beak-nosed old man with a stringy wattled neck, his white hair gleaming in stark contrast to his faded spots, stood in the open doorway. Cautiously he made his way across the room. Trailing him was a neatly dressed much younger man, who handed him a briefcase and then stepped back, waiting quietly. The old man set the briefcase on the endtable; taking a seat beside her bed, he gravely inclined his head toward her.

Nilani squinted at him. "Gods, Pellor, you look like hell," she said at last, a reluctant smile creeping over her face.

"Good to see you too, my friend," he said, his eyes twinkling.

"I'd forgotten how much I hate this part."

"Thanks very much," the old man said dryly. "All you joineds are the same; if you would consult with your lawyers regularly and more frequently there wouldn't be so much for each new host to deal with at once."

"I know, I know. Shouldn't you be retired by now?"

"As a matter of fact, my great-grandson Alim here" -– he indicated the young man, who nodded at her; she nodded in return -– "has been preparing to take over the handling of your account. I trained him myself in the particulars of your estate, so you'll be in capable hands. We've got a lot to catch up on; your predecessor wasn't very interested in business matters."

Nilani sighed. "So I realized, when I read the transition contract. Give me the short version, then. Good news or bad news?"

"Oh, for the most part, quite good, quite good. Kahn's holdings have done extremely well, you'll be happy to hear."

"Well enough to cover your retainer and the family life-interest, I gather."

"Certainly. Complex intergenerational legalities are fascinating and intellectually rewarding, but one must after all eat, and preferably with some measure of the comfort to which one has become accustomed. Shall I go on?"

"I suppose. Wait, you said 'for the most part'?"

"Ah." The old man bowed briefly, steepling withered fingers over his lips.

"Don't say 'Ah' and nod sagely, Pellor Joon, you piddled on me and spoiled a perfectly lovely tano silk dress at your naming ceremony when you were three. Out with it, what's the bad news?"

The birdlike head tilted to one side. "I don't recall your being quite so rude before," the old man said merrily. "I shall put it to the exigencies of youth." Joon settled back into his chair. "Well, it's not actually so much 'bad' as it is tedious, for all parties involved. Do you remember Livor and Gellan Emos?"

"Of course. Tamira's children." Mentally she ticked off names. "Five hosts ago."

"Specifically, the children who were born before Tamira was joined to Kahn."

"Er, yes. What's the problem?"

"You'll recall that Tamira drafted her own will -– against my great-great-grandmother Sareya's advice, I might add."

The words triggered a shadow-memory. "That's right," Nilani said. "I was so intimidated by the thought of having to deal with the estate. Even when Sareya had simplified everything to the point where all that was basically required of me was a signature retinal scan and voiceprint, I kept putting off our scheduled sessions and avoided her for nearly the last twenty years of my life. I wrote that will only because the Symbiosis Commission threatened me with censure and garnishment."

"Well, in this case it might have been better if you hadn't. As your legal administrator, Sareya would of course have been appointed Kahn's executor and been able to control most of the estate in accordance with the symbiont intestacy succession laws. However, Tamira also signed over to Livor and Gellan a durable power of attorney, possibly because they convinced her that they could save her the trouble of dealing with 'those messy business details.' Their descendants are now asserting that they are eligible to claim not only all of Tamira's personal property but also to apply for the bypass trust from Kahn's estate as residuary legatees -– thereby avoiding taxes on the bulk of their inheritance. Shaky, but the wording of the standardized document Tamira used is vague enough to be open to that interpretation."

"So why have they waited so long? Surely the longer the proceedings... well, proceed, the more they have to outlay in the end."

"They can't seem to come to an agreement between themselves about how the estate is to be divided, in the remote chance that they should actually win the petition. The descendants are in the unenviable position of having to spend the credits their branch of the family have sought for so long to gain. And in the meanwhile the taxes on Tamira's property are compounding interest nicely."

"Meaning," Nilani sighed, "that when they finally give up squabbling, and when Tamira's will is finally probated, that I am going to be pounced on not only by the government but also by you, sitting in the corner waiting for your fat slice to be dished up." She smiled ruefully. "As my husband Torias would say, anyone who tries to shovel his own legal shit has an idiot for a lawyer and a fool for a client."

"Crude, but essentially correct."

That out of the way, Joon droned on and on about the state of her various holdings. Nilani, exasperated, suspected that even Kahn was developing a headache and began to think that maybe Tamira had had the right idea after all.


	10. Yours Must Ransom Me: Chapter 10

"Tell me again where we're going tonight, and why exactly it is that _I_ have to go?"

Torias stood scowling in front of the full-length mirror, yanking at the tiny fasteners of his dress shirt. Nilani moved behind him and caught his wrists, gently pulling his hands away from the hopelessly askew collar tab and trapping them against his belly.

"We are going to a recital during which the Silau Antiphonal will be attempted at the Temple for the first time in nearly ten years. You, darling husband, are going because we have been invited by my mentor and because I would like to show him that, contrary to popular Institute belief, you do indeed walk fully upright and can sometimes refrain from beating me into submission between flights."

He made a face at her in the mirror, watching while she adjusted his shirt. "Forcing me practically at disruptor point into this straitjacket and making me listen to some screeching freak is going to prove that I am a serenely suave and civilized individual?"

"You're beyond hope for that. But you can at least look decorative and make polite noises at Noren. There, that's much better."

Nilani let her hands drop around his waist and nuzzled into the side of his neck. Together they peered at his reflected image. The formal tunic though seldom worn was nonetheless superbly tailored, draping its silver-shot charcoal over Torias' broad chest. The stark white shirt peeking out beneath it emphasized sunbrushed cheekbones and made a startling contrast for the leaf-green eyes.

"Not bad," he said grudgingly.

"You do scrub up rather nicely. Now, will you promise to behave tonight?"

The dark head dipped as he feathered a kiss on her bare shoulder; she closed her eyes with a small sigh and turned inside the gathering circle of his arms. "Can't." His mouth, warmly searching out the sensitive places along her collarbone, came to rest at the the suddenly leaping pulse at the hollow of her throat. "Not with you... sitting next to me... in that dress... "

The crowd buzzed restlessly. For once nearly everyone was seated on time, and Nilani and Torias' last minute arrival necessitated a litany of "Excuse me"s and "Pardon"s as they snaked their way past resentfully shifting knees toward the pair of unoccupied seats in the center of the row. Noren Garet, long ensconced, merely nodded as they settled in beside him.

"Traffic," she murmured succinctly, a small lie she hoped would serve as both excuse and apology. It was partly true; by the time they had hastily rearranged their clothing and she had straightened her hair and makeup, the streethopper they finally managed to catch had had to drop them off a quarter kilometer away because of the throngs outside.

"Who's that?" asked Torias, indicating the roped-off section a few rows in front of them.

"Critics." They were present in full force; evidently even the outlying colonies had sent representatives. "They'll have spent the last few weeks sharpening their knives."

His curiosity heightened visibly. "Are they expecting it to be that bad?"

"On the contrary," said Garet, leaning over. "I'd wager that most of them are hoping it will be that good."

"Mm. What's so damned special about this piece? They've been playing it endlessly on all the arts nets. You can't even go to a restaurant these days without having it piped in."

Nilani was mildly astonished that he would even recognize it. "At home, he listens only to slam fusion at a volume guaranteed to shatter the neighbors' eardrums," she told Garet. "If he really likes a song, he'll play it on a continuous loop for hours at a time. Even worse, sometimes he sings along."

Garet quirked an eyebrow at her but spoke to Torias. "Of course you realize that's a studio recording made in an acoustically controlled holographic environment."

"Same thing, only more precise; surely that's better."

"Hardly, darling. See up there," Nilani pointed at the two deep alcoves, recessed into the walls at angles to one another, that flanked the stage just below the curve of the high-arching domed ceiling. "The piece was written specifically for this hall. When this was still a place of worship thousands of years ago, those were the chancels from which the cantors sang the summonses. Nowadays they're box seats for royalty, distinguished guests, anyone who's more interested in being seen than in actually listening to the music. Silau was the first –- and so far only –- composer to incorporate them into a performance. The Antiphonal calls for a full chorus in each of those alcoves as well as a solo soprano onstage."

Scrolling through the program notes in the armrest reader, Torias whistled softly. "8.5-second echo from center stage without the acoustic baffles. Must be a nightmare to coordinate all that."

Garet nodded. "Exactly. Neither chorus nor the soloist can hear one another until the various echoes have bounced back. Every performer has to know when the sounds from each part will dissipate at what volume, and everything must be timed precisely so that the echoes don't simply cancel one another out or summate into deafening cacophany. It takes months of rehearsal to prepare the chorus alone. Whether Silau was a genius or a madman is widely debated; in my opinion he was more than a little of both."

" 'This evening's performance marks the return of Chi'pah Na'Rel of the Vulcan Conservatory to the Temple Auditorium for the first time since Silau's _Antiphonal_ was last mounted here in 1275,'" Torias read. "He was the one? What happened?"

"Ah." Garet took his time in replying. "Hard to say, as he has consistently refused to speak about it in interviews. Quite a disaster, really, from both the artistic and professional standpoint. Na'Rel was an immensely popular performer and the critics' golden son, a rare combination of charisma and true musicality; his coming here was a highly publicized event.

"In the performance he twice called for the piece to be started over. The third time, things seemed to go better, but then the parts began again to go out of synch and the remote conductors signalled frantically for the choruses to stop. But of course Na'Rel couldn't hear, at least at first, and he must have been so intent on going on that he kept singing, even long after he had to have known the other singers were no longer with him. He finished the opening movement on his own, bowed to the audience, then simply left."

"The critical dissection afterward was merciless," added Nilani. "He hasn't sung in public until now, as far as I know. Frankly, I'd be amazed if he were still capable of the technical demands of the piece."

"Mm." Torias fell silent and went back to reading the program notes until the house lights flashed, then faded. Nilani settled into her seat and briefly squeezed Garet's hand in anticipation, but before she could say anything the onstage entrance was sliding open and without any fanfare Chi'pah Na'Rel emerged.

Tall and slender, as was typical of the Vulcan castrati, he seemed to glide rather than walk in the floor-length green robe that shimmered about him. Yet the ethereal impression was belied when he halted and bowed his head: the posture emphasized the breadth of his abnormally developed chest, and such was the gravity of his demeanor that it was as though his concentration alone were anchoring him to the stage.

The burst of applause that had greeted his appearance spattered out. Furious _hssst_s instantly suppressed the usual assault of coughs and hawking throats and the audience again subsided into a reverently strained silence.

Eyes closed, the chi'pah lifted his head in what looked like a gesture of either pain or ecstasy. Because of the sound delay it was not immediately clear that he was the source of the pure wordless simplicity, devoid even of vibrato, that unfurled softly and billowed to fill the confines of the hall. Dissonant notes from one chorus and a slow ostenuto from the other rose to meet it in a rough caress of clashing sound, establishing in the opening section the conflict that segued seamlessly into the fugue.

Asserting themselves, the three parts chased one another and claimed dominance in turn: a fusillade of hard trumpetlike phrases from the first chorus, which itself fragmented and then at times recombined with a shout; the insistent repetition, as though in complete disregard for meter or harmony, from the second chorus; and above it all the magnificent voice that refused to be subsumed by the assault which it seemed alternately to elude and to challenge.

Now whispering, now ringing, the voice cast its siren spell. Subtly, discord resolved into euphony as first one, then the other chorus was seduced into a beckon and call that was a gently mocking reflection of the earlier confrontation. Back and forth the voices quested until the many followed and then joined and then submitted to the one, burnishing a final chord into rapturous silence beneath the triumphantly soaring swell. Na'Rel burst into a fiendishly difficult coloratura passage, made even more demanding by its decrescendo into a sustained pianissimo. The last impossibly long-held note ended almost imperceptibly, leaving its author as he had begun, with eyes closed and head bowed.

The audience was utterly still for a good ten seconds after the echo wisped into evanescence. And then a sound ferocious as ripping canvas tore through the auditorium as two thousand people who had been holding their collective breath for the past hour arose in thunderous waves, applauding and shouting, many of them weeping with release.

Bowing, the Vulcan departed the stage. For long minutes the applause went on, then finally organized itself into the rhythmic clapping that was the time-honored though vulgar demand for an encore, but still he did not appear. When it was clear Na'Rel did not intend to return, the house lights came up at last; reluctantly, even a bit uncertainly, people moved to leave.

Nilani found her neck and shoulders stiff with tension and rolled her head to loosen them. Stealing a glance at Torias, she was struck by the intensity in the half-lidded eyes that still stared at the vacated stage.

"Would you like to meet him?" Garet asked. He smiled at their inquiring expressions. "Privilege granted to those who donate astronomical sums in order to get their names inscribed on a little plaque in the atrium."

"Yes," answered Torias unexpectedly; he began shouldering his way through the crowd toward the front of the auditorium. Exchanging a glance and a small shrug, Nilani and Garet followed.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" she murmured into his ear.

Garet looked at her sideways, clearly bemused. "I think your young man might surprise you."

She blinked. But then they were swept up into the backstage chaos and there was no opportunity to question him further.

Everywhere around them were chorus members, their robes flapping in various states of disarray. Most jabbered animatedly, raising their voices in order to be heard above the din but succeeding only in adding to it; here and there, small groups erupted into bawdy song –- fueled no doubt by the beer they were downing in reckless quantities. Stage crew breaking down lights and other equipment ducked in and out among the merry singers, dodging here a sweeping emphatic arm, there a hand balancing a drink and a tiny plate overloaded with food.

In the confusion Nilani and Garet caught up with Torias, who had managed to secure a generous portion from the buffet as well as a place in line among the other well‑wishers. Conversation was impossible, so they stood patiently and shuffled forward until the doorman admitted them at last.

The anteroom rang with quiet after the din outside. "Thank goodness!" said Nilani, working her jaw to relieve the tightness in her ears.

"Indeed." Garet picked his way around the flowers already piled on every surface, finally leaning carefully against the edge of a table. "So. Not quite like a holorecording, was it?"

Torias laughed easily and without resentment. "You were right. I'm no musician, but even I could tell that that was damned impressive."

"What did you find most 'impressive' about it?" Garet's voice was noncommittal but, Nilani realized, he was watching her husband with much the same look of intense concentration he reserved for crucial experiments.

"Mm." Torias' gaze seemed to turn inward. "I guess... partly because of the technical aspect; I've enough of an engineering background to appreciate just how difficult it must have been to fit everything together. But no, that's not it at all. What impressed the hell out of me was that this man opened the deepest part of his heart like he was daring the world to reject what it saw in there, and it was fucking beautiful."

Garet cocked his head. "You don't subscribe to the accepted notion, then, that Vulcans are a dispassionate, stoical people?"

"Anyone who says Vulcans don't feel emotion –- or anyway _that_ Vulcan," Torias said belligerently, "is deluded. If he didn't feel anything there'd be no way he'd be able to do... " he waved in the general direction of the stage, " ... that."

"In a way you are correct," a slightly husky voice interjected.

Like guilty schoolchildren, they spun to face the celebrated singer who was watching them from the entrance to the private dressing room.

Garet cleared his throat. "How do you mean, Chi'pah?"

"It is not entirely true that Vulcans do not feel emotion; instead, we have learned to utilize emotions as tools rather than to be ruled by them."

"Bullshit," Torias insisted. Three sets of eyebrows flew up. "Er... I mean, without emotional investment, without personal risk, it'd be like that holorecording: technically perfect but dead boring. You can't tell me that what you did tonight was merely 'utilizing a tool.'"

The Vulcan regarded him impassively for a long moment. "Tell me, Mister... "

"Dax."

"Mister Dax, what is your profession?"

"Test pilot for experimental craft."

"I see. By its very nature, your calling entails great risk. Do you not worry that a single mistake could have catastrophic consequences?"

"I can't think about that. If I concentrated on the potential dangers rather than on the task at hand, I might be paralyzed by fear or indecision. Hell, if I thought too hard about it, I wouldn't get out of bed in the morning."

"You are good at what you do?"

"Yes. When I am up there, in a totally new, untested bird, I feel as though no one else in the world could fly it better."

"Overconfidence can be dangerous."

"False modesty can be just as dangerous, and even more egotistical."

"When did you learn to fly?"

Torias grinned. "Can't remember –- I probably drove my parents crazy asking for lessons when I was a kid. Spent every moment I could in the family 'hopper. I was instrument rated when I was 13, qualified for multicraft rating at 15."

"And when you first started, your instructors proceeded in a stepwise fashion, did they not?"

"Sure. Months of learning nothing but the principles of lift, or engine trim, or shield configuration, and so on."

"But when you actually flew on your own, you did not consciously break the motions down into each step."

"Of course not. By then it was as though all I had to do was think where I wanted my ship to go, and it would."

"In other words, the tools you began with have been so fundamentally integrated that flying became an extension of yourself, operating effortlessly and smoothly as though with its own freedom and wisdom and revelation. And not to do so would be to sever the best part of yourself."

"Right," Torias said slowly. "So that's why you did it, why you risked your career and your reputation to come back here." The Vulcan merely inclined his head. "Funny."

One dark eyebrow hitched into a circumflex. "What is funny?"

Ignoring the faintly amused tone, Torias said, "That a eunuch would have more balls than most people I know."

The black-on-black eyes narrowed, and for a brief second matched the hard glitter of intense green in what Nilani would later swear was a smile. Then the Vulcan bowed again, and without another word turned and swept back to the private dressing room.

* * *

_Thanks to Macedon (aka Joe) for letting me borrow his concept of the Vulcan chi'pain, which he invented for a marvelous trilogy of stories featuring Jake Sisko. Unless someone out there knows how to unearth the old a.s.c. archives, though, I'm afraid they've been lost to time.  
_


	11. Yours Must Ransom Me: Chapter 11

"Darling?"

"Mmhmm?"

"Kahn passed an egg packet yesterday."

" 'S nice." The arm about her waist tightened in a vise grip as he came fully awake. "Are you sure?"

"Quite sure. I put it in gel stasis."

"Mmm." There was a long silence. Torias rolled over onto his back and she tucked herself against him, her head finding its place on the muscular round of his shoulder. "You know what this means, don't you?" he said at last.

"Yes, of course. It's just a little hard to believe. After twenty-one lifetimes, one doesn't exactly expect -– "

"I suppose we'll have to inform the Commission," he said, with no particular emphasis.

In the dark, Nilani had no way to judge his expression, but took reassurance from the strong embrace that clasped her solidly to him. "Maybe we should wait a bit before telling them."

"Wait? For what?"

"Well, for one thing, to see if Dax accepts the overture. I'd hate to have to undergo all the tests and inquiries if there were a chance it might refuse. There have been documented incidences of inappropriate core bondings -– there was one case where it turned out that one of the symbionts was conflicted about it and was psychologically bullied into going through with the ceremony by the other -– "

Torias began to shake, silently at first, then escalating into full-blown laughter. Partly relieved, partly wondering if hysteria were contagious, she joined in; he was by then whooping and nearly in tears.

When he could speak, he pulled her close, burying his mouth in her hair. "Darling, darling, my poor, poor darling. You've been spending too much time lately talking legalese with Joon. Surely you didn't think I would run away shrieking in the night at the mere idea of Dax and Kahn's being joined?"

"We've only just gotten married ourselves! I thought -– "

"You thought that was the extent of my commitment."

"Torias, you don't even want children, but you're willing to go through with this?"

"This is different. At least we won't need to find a womb surrogate and learn how to change diapers."

"Very funny." She brooded for a while. Torias was so quiet that she thought he had fallen back asleep, but then his hand moved to lightly scratch blunt nails up and down her back. "You know, we've never talked about having children."

"Mm." The delightful scratching continued and she stretched and arched into his caress. "Do _you_ want to have children?"

"Oh. I guess I'd always thought I'd have a baby before I was joined. Easier all around, you know. But then I got word about Kahn, and you came along and swept me off my feet and into your bed practically after we met."

"As I recall, you weren't exactly unwilling to be swept."

"Of course not, silly. But we haven't really taken the time to discuss any long term plans."

"I suppose not." The hand came to rest at the back of her neck and rubbed expertly at the knots it found there. "What about now?"

"Now? Well, I'm still physically recuperating. I won't have to worry about pressure atrophy for a few years yet, but I doubt the Commission would approve it this soon anyway."

"Mm. Don't take this the wrong way, but... good."

"You really don't want children?"

Torias was silent for a while, still kneading her neck and back until her spine felt as though it had turned to liquid. "Not saying forever, understand. It's just... right now I don't want to share you with anyone."

* * *

_Good thing I'm not claustrophobic,_ Nilani thought with a slight shudder as she looked uneasily about her. Judging by the weird echoes, the open space seemed to go on for quite some distance but it was difficult to tell; there were conical lamps along the walls at regular intervals but the low rough ceiling smothered the illumination from each of them into a faint circle that did little to penetrate the darkness.

She was floating naked in one of the dozens of small, nearly identical stone pools that dotted the cavern. Torias sat in another pool adjacent to hers, facing her, so that they were separated by a distance of several meters; with the poor visibility, Nilani could just make out his features.

"Nobody told me what this... stuff would be like," she whispered fiercely, though as far as she could tell, there was no one around to overhear. The greyish-brown fluid was lukewarm and unpleasantly viscid, dense enough that she had no trouble bobbing at the surface; it was odorless and presumably harmless but she took care to keep her face out of it.

"Disgusting, isn't it? Look." Torias lifted his arm; the substance left no trace on his skin, instead clinging to itself and pulling back into the pool with a soft _splip_.

"When does the ceremony start? What do we do?"

He shrugged. "I was hoping you'd know. I mean, I know neither of us has gone through this before, but surely at least one of your previous hosts has talked to or read about someone who has?"

"There's really not much in the literature about the ceremony, and the few joineds who have gone through with it don't seem to have been very communicative."

"No one recently, I take it?"

"The last was about thirty years ago, a musician named Kamalu Tiris and her wife Larina Savarin. According to the records, they've lived on Amari'ah Colony ever since."

"Exiled?"

"Not exactly. There aren't any rules explicitly forbidding contact, but oddly enough I still haven't been able to get in touch with them."

"Ooooohhh... spoooooky," intoned Torias. "It's a Guardians' conspiracy to scare us out of going through with it."

"Don't be silly, darling." She tried to splash him but succeeded only in stirring up a torpid wave in the muck, which settled almost immediately back into its peculiar smoothness. "All the Guardian said was that the others would be arriving soon. I suppose they'll tell us then."

"What others? Other Guardians? I wish they'd -– gah!"

"Torias, don't do that!"

"Sorry, darling, but something just brushed my leg."

"Well, maybe it was -– whooo!" Nilani jumped as her foot was bumped by -– what? She peered hard at the turbid surface until her eyes burned with strain, but could see nothing.

"What's in these pools, anyway?"

"No one really knows."

"No one? You and Garet have spent years and who knows how many of my tax credits studying the symbionts, and you're not sure?"

"We study their neural systems, not their environment. And it's not like it hasn't been tried. Something about the composition of the liquid completely disables any kind of exploratory equipment sent down there, and its molecular structure is too unstable to be replicated in the lab. They've even tried more primitive methods, like sending a diver down in a sensor suit, but the readings keep coming back garbled and the divers themselves seem to be confused about what they've experienced. So no one has any idea how deep these pools are, or where the symbionts live in them, or even how many there actually are. It's very frustrating -– "

Nilani stopped, astonished, as dozens of slugs appeared silently at the pool's surface, circling her and moving in complicated patterns without any discernible effort. "Um, darling?"

"Don't ask me, they're over here, too. Ow! Hey!"

"What? What happened?"

"I don't know. I tried to touch one and it zapped my hand with this... blue energy discharge, or something."

She tamped down her uneasiness. _They won't harm us, they know we're harboring symbionts. Don't they?_ As if in response, she felt movement in her belly as Kahn began to pulse in time with the free slugs' intricate choreography.

Almost as abruptly as they had appeared, the symbionts submerged and vanished without so much as a splash. Kahn stilled within her, but the rhythmic movement persisted in her heartbeat.

"That's it?"

Torias sounded as incredulous as she felt. Experimentally, Nilani swept an arm out in a circle but encountered nothing. "I was expecting something a little more spectacular, but I think so; they seem to be gone."

"So what do we do now?"

Before she could reply, the Guardian who had escorted them to the cavern returned and bowed. The seemingly ageless woman helped them out of their pools in turn, then gestured for them to follow.

Exchanging eyebrow shrugs, Nilani and Torias obediently fell in behind her as she led them to a dimly lit but more open space. Cool rough stone underfoot gave way to a pliant, moist heat as water began to pour over them like tropical rain. The Guardian bowed again and backed away with a small smile, leaving them alone again.

Nilani tilted her face upward, letting the water soak her hair. Her skin seemed to be hypersensitive; the continual streams coursing over her body felt like caressing fingers. Sensing Torias behind her, she leaned back against his muscled chest and gasped.

Always warm, his skin seemed to sear hers. He clasped her tightly, as though trying to imprint her body onto his own. The insistent pulse radiated outward from her center until she could feel it in her lips and fingertips, in her bones, in the very blood cells that rushed through her veins, and she knew with a surety that he felt the same.

Turning, Nilani claimed his mouth with a kiss hard enough to bruise, tasting him, inhaling the intoxicating amalgam of their combined scents. Breath and pulse quickened in unison as body seemed to fuse to body, melting, burning with arousal that was almost pain. Impatiently she pulled Torias down to the cavern floor and they cried out together as she opened to him, realizing with a shock that each could sense exactly what the other felt, all at once.

She entered him, encompassed by astonishing heat-slick flesh. He surrounded her, panting as she impaled him halfway to the heart, wrapping legs around her waist to draw her ever deeper. Ancient mind entwined with ancient mind, suddenly no longer alien and unknowable as they abandoned conscious thought, willingly surrendering to the dissolving of their separate selves into a shared entity that was exquisitely, shatteringly overwhelming.

Shudders rippled endlessly through her. "Don't let go of me," she whispered hoarsely, clinging to the solid weight of him bearing her to the yielding floor of the cavern, water swirling over and around the indistinguishable tangle of their limbs.

Breathing raggedly, he closed his teeth over the junction of her neck and shoulder hard enough to mark her to blood. "Never," he rasped.


	12. Yours Must Ransom Me: Chapter 12

Nilani awoke with a start as the shrieking of sirens pierced her head. Heart hammering, she reached out automatically to the other side of the bed and found it empty.

The insistent _wheeeeet!_... _wheeeeet!_... _wheeeeet!_... seemed to stab through her eardrums and out her eyeballs. Desperately she flung on her dressing gown and slapped her hands over her ears, which muted the volume somewhat but had little effect on mitigating the intensity of the soundbursts. She hurried to the vidcomm in the living room and requested the Base Ops channel.

Normally busy with constant updates on weather and other pertinent aerospace data, the screen was a slate blue blank, save for a plain message that flashed _**PLEASE STAND BY FOR FURTHER INFORMATION**_.

The sirens abruptly stopped. Thankfully she massaged her throbbing temples in the ringing quiet.

Ordinarily she wouldn't have been up to get ready for work for at least another hour but she was far too awake and nerve-jangled to try to go back to sleep. Calling up a cup of mobareth with extra cream and sweetener, she sat down at the kitchen table to read, then tossed aside the padd when she realized she'd tabbed through six pages of the article without comprehending a word.

The mobareth seemed to curdle in her stomach. The contents of the cup clutched in her hands had cooled to room temperature by the time she heard footsteps outside the door. She braced for the sound of the alert...

... which never came, as Torias walked in.

Nilani flung herself at him, clinging to his neck and feeling his arms crush her. "Who was it?" she managed to ask.

He said nothing, but tightened his hold on her to the point where the embrace was almost painful.

Growing suspicion and dread started a crawling tingle at the back of her scalp. "Who was it?" she asked again, pulling back slightly to look at him.

Torias' face was pale beneath the olive tan of his skin. "Beach," he said at last.

The inquest was held two days later.

Nearly all the base personnel were in attendance; the normally spacious briefing room was full to bursting. Present also was a tall, dignified Terran woman who sat stiffly upright and stared a hole in the viewscreen that took up most of the front wall.

Nilani nudged Torias. "Is that her?" she whispered.

"Beach's mother, yes. Shhh."

The first part of the inquest involved playback of the onboard camera's footage, which without preamble filled the blank screen with a tight shot of Beach's surreally calm face.

Tower Ops' tinny voice could be heard in the background. "Control to Alpha One. Throttle back your port thrusters; your slip angle's skewing too wide."

Nilani watched her friend smoothly make adjustments in the controls, the expression on his face never changing. "I've got an asymmetric burn in the aft engines that's exaggerating into a helical backwash." Some completely separate part of her noted that there was no trace of the familiar drawl -– the only outward sign of the tension he had to have been feeling. "Helm is not responding. Attempting to modify the shield wedge to get the tail lined up with airflow." An escalating shriek immediately signaled the engines' protest.

"Alpha One, compensation is ineffective. Hit the afterburners and pull her up out of the atmosphere."

"Negative, Control. At present shield configuration the stresses would rip the fuselage apart, and if it's all the same to you I'd just as soon bring her down in one piece. Make it a little easier for the nitpickers to sift through the wreckage."

The tower controller tried to laugh, but his voice had completely tightened out of its lower register and the sound came out high-pitched and strangled. "Beach, get out of there! You still have time!"

"Negative, Control; we're out of our fly zone and there's commercial traffic below. I'm heading her toward the ocean to keep casualties to a minimum."

"Set her course and eject, then, dammit! The blasted ship's not worth it! You're -– "

The whine from the engines stopped, the clicks and beeps of switches and touchpads audible with sudden, awful clarity. "Control, we got ourselves a little problem," said Beach dryly.

"No shit!" But the pilot's composure was contagious, it seemed, and the controller's voice, though still strained, settled almost back into its normal range. "I'd say MTBF just headed toward zero. Parasite drag's slowing you down; better cash in some altitude to get back up to gliding speed."

"Right." Beach made some unhurried adjustments. "Control, you might want to put out an alert to clear the path behind me for a while; anyone crossing my wake's gonna feel like he hit a stone wall."

The onboard camera went blank and the vid switched abruptly to footage from the series of satcams that Eshidan maintained in low orbit. In silence the crowd watched as the small ungainly craft descended at an insane rate and angle, smashed into the ocean and tumbled end over end, finally skipping along the surface like a tossed pebble and coming to rest surrounded by a hiss of white foam.

The shuttle's floatpods deployed to keep the wreckage on the surface and the recovery team reached Beach in record time. But the head on the body visible through the emergency hatch lolled at an ominous angle that said as clearly as the coroner's report that followed that his neck was broken.

Base Commander Ribu read the statement from the salvage engineers, ending with a declaration of No Pilot Error. No one had expected otherwise, of course, but there was still a dissipating of tension in the room, as though the entire crowd had simultaneously released a long-held breath.

The inquest concluded with a viewing of the recording that Eshidan required all its pilots to update biannually along with their wills. Beach's was brief, first saying goodbye to Tiran Imara, the Trill woman he'd loved and lived with for years, then addressing his closest friends by name.

"Y'all know that as a former Starfleet officer, I'm entitled to a military funeral. Now, I don't need all the foofaraw but there is one part of it that I would greatly appreciate. If he hasn't gotten his fool self killed before me, Torias Dax knows what I want." With that, the recording ended.

Torias squeezed Nilani's hand, stood up and cleared his throat. "Please assemble on the shuttlefield, if you will," he said to the room in general, then nodded to the four other pilots Beach had named, who followed him out the side door.

Nilani made her way over to where Tiran stood and gave the older woman a fierce hug. "How are you?"

"I've had better days." The smile was more of a grimace, but Tiran returned the embrace warmly.

Together they watched as the five chosen pilots each clambered into one of the military-spec shuttles that perched on the main launchpad. The sleek little ships lifted off in unison and immediately flitted into a precise V-formation as they swooped overhead. As they looped around to pass back over the airfield, the lead shuttle peeled off and flew straight up as the rest of the shuttles continued on in level flight until they were all out of sight.

"Missing man flyby," said Tiran in answer to Nilani's unspoken query.

She nodded, swallowing at the sudden tightening of her throat.

"Come on," Tiran said, tucking her arm into Nilani's. "I could use a drink."

Nilani blinked as she followed Tiran's lead. "Aren't we going to go to the funeral?"

Tiran shook her head. "I've already lost him once. I don't need to see his molecules vaporized. Besides," she added, nodding to yet another pilot who mumbled his respects as they passed, "they won't want me there."

"But," Nilani frowned, "but he was their friend. And the best pilot on the base."

"_Was_ their friend, _was_ the best pilot on the base. Now he's gone. They'll spend the next few days or weeks dissecting the footage, discussing the problems they saw and how they might have approached them differently. But for them Beach officially no longer exists. And by extension, neither do I."

She started to protest, then noticed for the first time the subtle but distinct space surrounding them as they moved through the crowd. "That's... incredibly cynical."

"Just being realistic, or maybe fatalistic. Distancing themselves from the fallen is one of the ways they keep going, keep doing the crazy things they do." They reached the residence unit Tiran and Beach had shared. Tiran palmed the switch and let them in.

The narrow entranceway was almost filled with a neat pile of packing containers, already sealed. "You're leaving? So soon?"

"Thought I'd save them the trouble of having to politely ask me to move out. They've already credited me his hazard pay and life insurance benefit, so I'm going back to my house on the south continent. There's nothing for me here."

Nilani looked around the unit. Its layout was identical to the one she and Torias lived in, down to the base-issue furnishings and off-white walls. The only thing that gave the place any hint of the personality it had once housed was the incredibly ugly chair holding pride of place in a corner of the main room. Her eyes stung as she thought of the countless times she had seen Beach lounging in it, his long legs dangling well past the footrest that swung up at the touch of a mechanical lever on the chair's side. A La-Z-Boy, he had called it, insisting that it was a family heirloom.

"You're welcome to it," said Tiran wryly. "I refused to have it in my house, so he had it transported here."

Laughing and sniffling at the same time, Nilani smiled. "Torias will probably like it. Maybe it's a boy thing."

Declining Tiran's offer of a shot of whiskey -– Kahn tended to get indigestion if she drank hard liquor -– she promised to come back in the morning to help with the last of the packing, hugged her friend once more, and returned brooding to her own home.

Torias came in some hours later, finding her sitting in the dark.

"Oh, gods," he whispered, joining her on the sofa, clinging to her blindly, burying his mouth in her hair; a sudden hot wetness on her cheek told her he was crying, as she was. Wordlessly they tore at each other's clothing, frantic and fierce in their coupling, seeking not tenderness but the assuagement of their subsuming connection, the assurance that they were alive.

" 'For each ecstatic instant, we must an anguish pay, in keen and quivering ration to the ecstasy,'" he murmured as they lay entwined, sweat cooling on their bodies.

Nilani shivered. "What?" she snapped, more harshly than she'd meant.

"Line from a poem Beach's mother read at the funeral. One of his favorites, she said. Just struck me as appropriate."

"No, it's not; it's horrible." There was a long silence. "Darling?"

"Don't."

"Don't what?"

"Don't ask me to stop flying."

"I'm not asking you to stop flying, just to do it under different circumstances! You could be a commercial pilot -– any of the interplanetary lines would be lucky to have you."

"Become a glorified delivery boy? No thanks. I'd die of boredom in a week."

"You've said yourself that the commercial lines always have the newest ships and shuttles. You'd still have access to cutting-edge technology."

"Sure -– after all those edges have been blunted and fitted with restrainers."

She fumed for a while. "So your getting a thrill is more important than coming home safely?"

"Nilani, it's part of who I am, not just what I do."

Misinterpreting her silence for acquiescence, Torias gradually relaxed, the arm around her heavy with sleep. Despite her physical and emotional exhaustion, though, Nilani lay awake for hours, finally drowsing fitfully only to be awoken by the images that played all too vividly in her head.


	13. Yours Must Ransom Me: Chapter 13

Nilani awoke as Torias slid out of bed. Drowsily admiring the flex and play of the muscles beneath the smooth skin of his tapering back and squared-off buttocks, she drifted back to sleep to the rumbling buzz of the sonic shower, then woke again when the closet door opened. She heard him rummaging quietly, then heard the whisper of fabric and fasteners.

He emerged humming tunelessly under his breath, flashed her a grin when he realized she was watching him, and bent to kiss her. "You're up early."

"So're you." She smiled against his lips, then noticed that he was wearing his flightsuit. Icy fingers clenched at her gut. "Which ship?" she asked, already suspecting the answer.

"A new one," he said, a little too breezily.

"Don't be an ass. Which ship?"

"The ERY‑1B." His mouth drew up into a half-smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.

"The Dragon." He said nothing. "For the gods' sake, Torias, that ship killed your best friend!"

"The _alpha prototype_ killed Beach. They've had months to evaluate the data and work out the problems."

"And you'll be flying P2," she said. A muscle twitched in his jaw, confirming her suspicions. "Oh, and that makes everything all right. How many times have you told me that that ship's a disaster, that the designers have ignored the recommendations for improvements and safety precautions in the flight envelope and pasted over flaws with essentially cosmetic changes? That the manufacturer seems to be more interested in fulfilling its quotas under contract than in delivering a ship that will actually perform reliably to specs?"

"You're just panicking. Don't blow this all out of proportion."

"Panicking? The best analytical pilot on the base nearly refused to fly that thing and then despite everything he tried still couldn't land it without snapping his neck, and you think I'm panicking?"

"Don't remind me, darling. I can't have any distractions when I'm up there."

"So my perfectly valid and justifiable concerns are a distraction?"

"Come on, Nilani, you know that's not what I meant."

"What you meant, clearly, is that your work and your ego come first, not me, not us. Not to mention Dax. Walk away, tell them you won't fly it. What do you have to prove?"

"I'll be careful, I promise." Leaning over, he tipped up her chin to kiss her; at the last second she averted her head so that the kiss landed on the corner of her mouth, her lips closed over clenched teeth. "I'll see you later." He left the room quietly, but she heard him whistling as he walked by outside.

Furious, Nilani tossed restlessly, until finally she kicked off the tangled covers and got up. Pacing the confines of the living room did little to dissipate the ball of anger and dread coiling within her; she crossed her arms tightly over her belly and tried futilely to banish the images and sounds playing over and over again in her mind. After an eternity she greeted the sunrise with hot dry eyes. It was almost a relief when the sirens began to wail.

* * *

"I have been expecting you, Dr. Kahn." The Guardian, clasped hands hidden within the sleeves of his robe, stood before a featureless beige door.

Nilani had never before been in this area of the Institute. Superficially, it looked no different from any other wing, but the constant intensely hushed activity and the sharp sting of industrial-strength disinfectant were instantly evocative of every hospital she had ever been in. She told herself firmly that the faint underlying scent of decay was all in her imagination. "Thank you. Dax is... well?"

The shaved head dipped. "Dax has been stabilized and is quite aware. The host unfortunately is not, but you should be able to communicate easily with him once I have performed the rite of manifestation."

"How much does he remember?"

"That would be something best addressed in person. Wait a few moments, please." Activating the control panel, the Guardian entered the room; the door slid shut behind him.

Pulse pounding with irrational trepidation, she collected herself by focusing on her breathing, feeling herself relax even as she straightened so that her spine was perfectly upright and aligned but no longer tense. Nilani closed her eyes and concentrated on simply being, noticing the sounds and physical sensations around her, aware of the streams of thoughts and feelings flowing through her without trying to influence or dwell on them. By the time she was bidden to enter she was calm and centered.

The calm was nearly shattered by the first glimpse of her husband's body. Pitilessly limned by the room's harsh lighting, it was as though he had been placed on display, a grotesque tableau. A white sheet covered him to the chest; the exposed flesh was nearly indistinguishable from the labyrinth of instrumentation sprouting from him.

Taking a deep breath, she struggled to contain herself. The Guardian's ritual, she knew, had created a virtual blockade that prevented Kahn from reaching out telepathically to Dax. It was a curious absence, not as acute as an amputation but haunting nonetheless, that allowed her to more easily detach her emotions from her observations. When she felt more in control, she moved to peer at Torias' battered face.

His eyes -– gods, his eyes! -– were open, unseeing, the pupils fixed and dilated, brilliant green forever driven out by bottomless black. Something glinted in the medial canthi; on closer inspection, she could see that lacrimal irrigators had been implanted, to prevent those dead-fish eyes from desiccating.

The lips were swollen and cracked, the jaw askew; a line of bloody drool connected one corner of his mouth to the sheet beneath the neck. The once hard planes of his cheekbones were softened and distended by puffiness beneath the surface. Normally tanned skin was tinged gray where it wasn't blotched with purple-black bruises shading to yellow and green at the edges.

Clear tubes carried oxygen to his nose. Another tube dripped white fluid from a bag into a vein in his arm. Larger tubes inserted somewhere within his chest evacuated thin pink froth; as she watched, a reddish black clot meandered viscously along in one of the hoses until it was cleared with a sickening _thup_ into the collecting chamber of a pump.

Monitors bleeped and machines hissed with unnatural regularity. The SEEG showed the spikes and tremors of normal brain activity in the upper half of the screen dedicated to the symbiont; the lower half showed depressingly straight lines.

The silhouette under the sheet seemed oddly flattened. Cautiously she reached toward his chest.

"Had some ribs and organs removed to give Dax more room," said a voice next to her. She snatched her hand back as though it had been burned. "Hello, darling."

The Guardian, of course. Nilani, her heart skipping momentarily, had forgotten that he was there. Was supposed to forget, for that matter; protocol for the rite of manifestation dictated that one converse with the host and not with its channeling medium. She nodded at him anyway and then addressed Torias' slack, nearly unrecognizable face.

"How... how are you feeling?" Stupid question, but she had no idea where to start.

"Not at all, thank goodness. Sorry," when she didn't respond, "small joke. They surgically disconnected all the sensory neural pathways so Dax wouldn't be in any pain. I, of course, am beyond feeling anything."

"What do you remember?"

"I had to flog that lumbering sow of a ship to get any kind of response out of her. Her stability generators failed almost immediately and she fought with me the entire way from takeoff. Bloody thing broke up due to abnormal aerodynamic stresses before she even reached escape velocity. Told the manufacturers so in my report -– probably the most detailed one I ever wrote in my career. Bastards need to scuttle the whole sodding line."

"They have, from what I heard. The principal investors pulled out after your inquest and the factory's been shut down indefinitely."

"And none too soon. How was the inquest, by the way? I wanted to attend but both Eshidan and the Commission thought it would be in poor taste."

Nilani choked on a sound that was half sob, half laughter. "They've never had to deal with a situation like yours." She swallowed, her mouth pasty. "I couldn't face it, not so soon after Beach's. I hope you don't mind that I didn't go."

"Don't blame you. It's a rather morbid process, really, like an object lession tinged with schadenfreude. My esteemed colleagues undoubtedly got immense satisfaction out of watching the footage of my little accident."

In her mind's eye she could see the animus in Torias' expression, the aggressive set of his posture, incongruous with the absolute immobility of the wreck of his body. Anger flared suddenly. "Accident. An accident is when you degauss a peripheral shield while learning to dock the family 'hopper, or drop a test tube on your lab bench. It's not an accident when you deliberately and against any kind of logic or common sense set out to fly a ship that, from your own description, is deficient from the engines outward."

"That's who -– "

"Yes, yes, I know. That's who you are, that's what you do. Did." She gave a short sharp bark. "I don't suppose the Commission will ever make _that_ mistake again."

"They tell me they're doing an accelerated search for Dax's new host."

"You didn't exactly give them a choice. They should have had years, maybe even decades to make a selection."

"I upheld my part of the agreement to give Dax the widest range of experience possible."

"And then failed to honor that agreement by abdicating your responsibility to protect Dax, to make sure that you live long enough for it to actually attain that experience. You've always refused to acknowledge that once you were joined, your life was no longer unequivocally your own to hazard. Never mind that you've abandoned me, and who knows what this is going to do to Kahn! Damn you, Torias -– "

A hoarse cry in the corner alerted her to the Guardian, who was curled on the floor clutching his forehead. She knelt at his side. His hand was clammy, trembling. "I'm sorry, Doctor, he broke the link, I couldn't stop him. I'm so sorry."

"It's not your fault. I should have expected this, he was always so impulsive. He -– oh!"

She felt Kahn meld with Dax, their minds sharing and possessing. It was achingly lovely, like slipping into a warm oil bath after a walk on a freezing day. The Guardian forgotten, Nilani indulged in long moments of losing herself in the intimate flow of consciousness.

An alarm startled her out of her reverie. The door opened, admitting an onrush of medical personnel who brusquely moved her out of the way to swarm over Torias' body. " ... becoming hypertensive... " " isoboramine level is dropping dangerously -– push ten units of benzocyatizine now, then ten of tri-hydroxy L-trypto in five minutes ... " " ... start a second central line ... "

An orderly grasped her elbow and helped her stand. "I'm sorry, Doctor, you mustn't be here." Gently but firmly he escorted her from the room and left her staring blankly at the door that whisked shut behind him.

Kahn's anguish at the abrupt separation expressed itself in the sensation that her entire body was screaming. Some part of her was aware that she had crumpled to the floor, that she was surrounded by doctors and nurses, their hands palpating her wrists, her belly, their mouths voicing concerned questions that made no sense.

After months of recuperation under the watchful care of the Commission, Nilani retreated to the familiarity and predictability of her work routine, spending nearly all her waking hours at the lab. Garet treated her with his customary courtesy and attention, and no one was surprised when a year later they announced that they were to be married.


	14. Yours Must Ransom Me: Chapter 14

The door comm chirruped again. Irritated, I looked up from my notes. I'd ignored the first two alerts, hoping whoever it was would give up and go away. "Yes, who is it?"

_"Nari, it's me."_

Oh. Setting down my datapadd, I exhaled and briefly closed my eyes. "Come in, mother."

Her entrance brought into my flat a delicate cloud of the citrusy floral scent that always surrounded her. "Nari, Nari," she shook her head, holding me at arms' length for inspection. "You're much too thin. And what in the world are you wearing?"

Resigned, I contemplated my ratty dressing gown and ancient fuzzy slippers, wiggling the big toe that stuck out of the left one. "I'm glad to see you too, mother."

"You're so pretty; the least you could do is to make yourself presentable. How else are you going to find a nice boy or girl to settle down with?"

"I'm preparing to defend my doctoral thesis. I wasn't exactly expecting company, much less setting out to ensnare the love of my life."

"Don't be difficult, Lenara. And anyway, I'm not company, I'm your mother. Here, this is for you."

She handed me a small package and gestured for me to open it. I pressed the release tab on the bottom; the little box unfolded, revealing a gorgeous crystal brooch carved into the abstract shape of an aratiga bird. I held it up to the window, marveling at the way the outstretched wings caught the light. "It's beautiful. What's it for?"

"It's a present, from your father and brother and me."

"Yes, but why?"

"For your zhian'tara, of course. Don't tell me you've forgotten!"

Actually, I had. I'd put it off until long past my joining anniversary, the customary time for the ceremony, and even tried to circumvent it altogether. The senior Guardian I'd petitioned had been unmoved by my argument that surely it was superfluous and far too tedious by this point; he'd listened with no sign of impatience or reproach, only an unchanging hangdog countenance that said he would not budge until I complied. Obviously he'd recruited my mother to make sure I followed through.

Despite my misgivings, the ceremony -– or rather, progression of ceremonies -– turned out to be surprisingly enjoyable. Bejal even came home from university to take part. In the months since I'd last seen him, my little brother had grown suddenly taller than I, gangling and awkward and not yet accustomed to the new length of his limbs. The sight of him gamely embodying the first ten of Kahn's hosts in rapid succession was highly entertaining, and we found ourselves laughing together and chatting late into the night. After a few days, though, he had to leave; midterm exams loomed, and it seemed he was missing the attentions of a certain comely classmate, any mention of whom made him stammer and blush.

My parents took turns standing in for the remaining hosts until my exhausted mother said enough was enough. "Darling, you'll have to ask Ismena." Noting my expression, she sighed. "I know you and she have never really gotten along together, but the Guardian recommends that we keep it within the family. Unless you have any friends that would suit."

I started to protest, but then realized she was right. I had some casual friends, mostly fellow students and a few former lovers, but none whom I knew well enough for this. There were my coworkers at the lab; I suppressed a laugh, picturing the panicked look that Hanor Pren would try to hide if I asked him. It truly was not fair to press my mother to serve yet again: each of the six hosts she had embodied had left her indisposed for an entire day afterward. Though in a way the experience had brought us closer than we had ever been; before she departed for her home, she spontaneously hugged me, something she had not done since I was a child.

Which left me the disagreeable task of contacting my cousin, who assented to my request with a coolly considered pause and then said she hoped it wouldn't take long, as she was due that afternoon for an appointment at Vasson's to have her spots tinted. Ismena eyed me critically over the vidcomm. "You could do with a touch more color yourself, Lenara. But then you always did favor the pale, washed-out look."

As agreed, we met at her house, which like her was all angles and planes; it had won numerous awards for modern architectural design, though evidently none of the criteria had included concern for the comfort of its inhabitants. Three immaculately turned out and no doubt award winning children greeted me politely and then were bustled away by an efficient looking caretaker.

We stood in the atrium of the greatroom, the Guardian cupping a hand behind each of our heads as he intoned the ritual. I could feel the now familiar surge of the telepathic transfer like a tickle in my gut, a magnetic tugging at my blood. At last he dropped his hand, and slowly I opened my eyes.

Again the subtle transformation. Before, it had been difficult to perceive one voice silenced among so many. This time, though, the difference was palpable: the voice that was now missing belonged to my immediate predecessor, next to the current host the strongest "I."

The Guardian bowed to us both, then silently left the room. I barely noticed, so intent was I on observing Nilani. Not the fragile, decrepit husk I had encountered almost three years ago, but Nilani as she must have been in the prime of her youth. I watched in astonishment as the body of my cousin pirouetted gracefully around the art installations in the open space, then tumbled down the carpeted central aisle, spinning the momentum from a roundoff into a back handspring and bouncing to a halt before me with a deep curtsey and a flourish.

I must have looked as surprised as I felt. "I'm sorry, would you have preferred that I bring flowers?" she said coquettishly.

"Why were you so rude at convergence?" I blurted, taken aback by her playfulness; I'd half-expected the same reception she'd shown me before.

My cousin's eyes danced, and a slow curving grin animated her severe features. Contrary to Bejal's long-held opinion, her face did not crack. "Among the privileges of greatly advanced age is that when one no longer feels the need to censor oneself for politeness' sake, people generally attribute the lack of niceties to encroaching senility. You can get away with saying the most awful things."

I had to laugh. "You were so bitter and cynical. I was totally convinced that you were going to refuse to pass Kahn to me."

"Were you?" Nilani frowned. "I suppose I might have come across that way. You've had my memories for some time now; you should know that I bore you no ill will."

"Well, yes. What I still don't know is why you said what you did."

"Why? Why. Hmm." She bit her lower lip, a charming gesture that unintentionally smeared my cousin's perfectly applied makeup. Ismena, I thought with amusement, was probably royally peeved. "Do you mind if we find someplace to sit down? Not in here, this room is about as cozy as a mausoleum."

We wound up in the kitchen, perched on a pair of unexpectedly comfortable high bar stools and clutching steaming cups, habizha tea for me, mobareth with a staggering amount of honey for her. Well, at least I knew now who was responsible for my penchant for sweets.

"I guess," she said finally, "I was rude partly because, however many times you go through with it, you're never quite prepared for the end. Oh, I knew that my body was breaking down, that the selection committee had made their choice and that you had accepted. But it's one thing to concede all that intellectually and quite another thing to be confronted with the tangible, living, breathing face of your death." She took a sip of her drink. "Isn't that silly? After a lifetime, after _multiple_ lifetimes of being inculcated in the belief that each host is merely a link in the chain for the symbiont, I still fought to hold on."

"No, I don't think it's silly. Not when you've done so much in that lifetime. If I can accomplish even a quarter of what you achieved, I'll be satisfied."

Nilani tilted her head, examining me. "I've no doubt you're my equal or better when it comes to intelligence or ambition or talent -– that's a given, for any initiate chosen to host one of the Firsts." One corner of her mouth curled wryly. "Your luck that we happened to meet just as I was wallowing in my regrets. What I would have done differently if I could have. How much I had lost, how much I was missing."

"Regrets, like Torias? You still dream of him sometimes." I smiled when she blushed. "I can tell when I wake up disoriented, aroused, so sure I can feel him, the heat of his body, the strength of his arms."

"Torias did have that effect." A little snort of laughter. "Noren used to say on those nights that I had been hijacked again by my young brigand."

"He didn't seem to mind?"

"No. He understood. I did love him dearly, but that came with time. Noren was a steadily burning flame, like a lamp; Torias was a forest fire, consuming everything in its path. I don't regret having loved him, but it could never have lasted."

"What do you regret, then?"

"Not having had children, for one. Though if Torias and I had had a child, the Commission probably would have taken him or her away from us shortly after birth."

"Special treatment for the offspring of two joineds."

Nilani nodded ruefully. "Yes. Quite the prize, isn't it? Or possibly they might have ruled -– with some justification -– that Torias was unfit to be a parent. I think he still holds the record for standards infractions and formal reprimands for a host."

The hours flew by until we realized that the Guardian was standing in the doorway, trying to catch my attention. Nilani and I exchanged faintly guilty glances and finished the last of our drinks.

"I'm very glad to have met you."

Her eyebrow quirked. "The real me, you mean?"

I laughed, and she joined in. Hand in hand, we returned to the greatroom where the Guardian waited uncomplainingly beside the Panharan brazier. For the last time, he performed the rite of restoration; for the last time, as Nilani's memories and knowledge and personality were returned to me, I felt the irrational sadness of losing a newfound friend inextricably bound with the contentment in my psyche at being once again whole.

My cousin was uncharacteristically subdued as I prepared to leave. "Thank you, Ismena," I said, meaning it sincerely.

"You know, Lenara," she said, hesitating, "I was always so envious of you, growing up. But now that Gerrin is nearly old enough to apply for candidate prep, I find myself almost hoping that he doesn't get admitted. The thought that I might not be able to see him more than once or twice a year after he turns eight... it's unbearable." Quickly she swiped a manicured hand across her face, heedless of her makeup. "I'm sorry, you're probably thinking I'm being selfish and stupid."

Tears stung my own eyes. "No, not at all." Impulsively I hugged her and kissed her cheek. She stiffened at first, like a startled bird in my arms, then returned my embrace. "I do have one other favor to ask of you."

"Yes?" she said, a little warily.

"Do you suppose you could convince Vasson's to fit me in this afternoon? I think I actually could do with a bit of color. And don't get me started on the state of my nails."

Bejal, I knew, would never believe me if I told him that Ismena really was quite lovely when she smiled.


	15. Yours Must Ransom Me: Chapter 15

"I wish I could believe you. But ultimately it comes down to this: if you feel about me the way I feel about you, you won't go on that transport tomorrow. And if you do leave, I think we both know you're never coming back again."

I reached a hand toward Jadzia but she shook me off, her expression crumpling as she rushed from the room.

Indecision froze me in place for a long moment. My jaw clenched. "Shit!" Ignoring the pain spiking my temples, I ran after her. "Dax!" My voice echoed through the corridor, which amplified the sound of my footsteps. She halted only when I grabbed her arm. "Jadzia, please."

Straightening, she took a juddering breath, then turned around. I felt a pang at the sight of her beautiful face wet with unabashed tears. "Miss me already?" she said, managing to muster a trace of her usual insouciance.

"Please, Jadzia, come back to my quarters. I don't think you want to continue this conversation in front of an audience." I could see my brother sitting on a bench near the entrance to the habitat ring. Unlike the dozens of passersby who were openly gawking, Bejal was pointedly not watching us.

"I'm not sure I want to continue this conversation at all." Wiping her face with the sleeve of her uniform, she sniffled and regained some of her composure. "I've said what I had to say. Clearly, so have you."

"Dammit, Jadzia, just give me a chance to explain. I -– " I swayed, suddenly dizzy. Alarmed, she caught me before I could fall. Evidently I hadn't completely recovered from the accident on the _Defiant _after all; the burst of activity and emotion must have depleted what was left of my reserves.

Shamelessly luxuriating in the contact, I leaned into her as she half guided, half carried me back down the corridor. At my door, she gave her override code to the comm panel and started to help me to the chaise I'd been resting on for most of the day, but I caught her wrist to stay her. Blue eyes burned into mine as I caressed the incomparably soft skin of her cheek, her spots flushing and raising where I brushed. With trembling fingertips I traced the outline of her mouth until her lips parted, swelling. Understanding without having to say a word, she bent to kiss me, gently at first, then willingly acceding to my increasingly demanding need.

Much, much later, we lay deliciously exhausted in bed, the sheets a hopeless jumble beneath us. "I think you may have discovered the ultimate cure for the post-traumatic headache," I said into the curve of her neck, breathing in the heady scents of sex and sweat and a trace of the same Risian perfume she had given me.

Chuckling, she reached for the carafe on the nightstand and deftly poured a glass of water for me without spilling. "Remind me to submit an article detailing my findings and methodology. I know of at least one Betazoid journal that would publish it, to say nothing of the bidding war we could incite if we got the Ferengi involved." I shifted to lean my weight on one elbow to drink, then curled myself back into her embrace. Idly I traced complicated little patterns over the flat expanse of her belly, thinking how quickly and easily within the past week had we fallen back into the habit of touching each other constantly.

It felt right. So damnably right.

Especially when she cradled my scalp and began kneading. "Not fair," I said, purring like a Mak'alan cavecat. "You were always so good at that." Playing my fingers over the costal spots beside her left breast made her shriek with laughter. "Still ticklish there, I see."

She trapped my hand and moved it to her lower abdomen; there was a subtle undulation beneath the skin in response to the pressure. "They're happy," she murmured.

Kahn's and Dax's connection felt like a warm glow that was all but visible. "I know."

Lips drifted to my temple. "I'm happy."

I pressed a kiss to the satiny hollow of her throat, feeling her pulse bound. "I know."

She tightened her arms about me, holding me close. "How much do you want to bet that your brother is pacing outside in the corridor, debating whether or not to barge in?"

"No bet. He's probably trying to decide which would be the more appalling, having to confront and denounce us or seeing his sister naked." Nails trailed up and down the length of my spine. I burrowed closer, unable to suppress a soft moan. "I suppose we'd better get dressed, though, in case his conscience wins out."

Tipping up my chin, Jadzia kissed me deeply. "Always the responsible one," she teased, stroking my hair. "But you're probably right. Care to join me in the shower?"

We managed to stumble to the bathroom, kissing along the way. I was sufficiently distracted that it took a minute to realize that warm water was cascading over us. At my unspoken question, she smiled. "One of the perks of being a member of the station's senior staff. Not as efficient as sonics, but much," she kissed me again, "much," her hands slid lower, "_much_ more pleasurable."

By the time we had expended her considerable stockpile of water reclamation credits in demonstrating just how pleasurable, my legs were trembling and every nerve ending I possessed seemed to be singing. She fussed over me, wrapping me in my dressing gown and combing out my hair until it was nearly dry. Settling us on the sofa, she stretched out her long frame and held me snugly against her.

"Lenara, have you ever thought about exactly _why_ reassociation is so forbidden?" she said after a prolonged yet contented silence.

I blinked, mildly startled; the hand rubbing the back of my neck had a hypnotic effect. "'The symbiont must let go of the past in order to continue accumulating new experiences through its hosts.' You know that as well as I do. Or don't you believe in it?"

A mirthless snort ruffled my hair. "Of course I believe in it. How can I not, when it's been hammered into me and every other host practically since birth? I'm just asking you if you've ever thought of the reasoning behind it."

"Jadzia, I was there, remember? It was totally new territory. Nothing like the implantation of one species into another had ever been attempted. They were desperate."

"Twelve symbionts and thirty-seven hosts died before the Commission understood that true joining actually requires a controlled anaphylaxis in order for the different bodily systems to begin interweaving. They had no way of knowing that the immunosuppressive drugs that were used in the first attempts would eventually leave the symbionts brain-dead and the hosts slowly decaying from the inside out."

"That's what happened to Baas," I whispered. "Kahn's brood relative. It was among the earliest volunteers for the initial trials after the disaster struck."

She held me tighter. "And after they figured it out, and when it was understood that the process resulted not in two separate beings merely sharing a body but in a completely unique individual who was a fusion of both, who made the rules, the governing principles for joining? Not the symbionts, not the joined, but the unjoined."

"Yes, I know that, we all know that," I said, unsure of where she was headed. "We accepted it, because for all the benefit that is conferred on both parties, it's the host that makes the greater sacrifice: shorter lifespan, impaired peripheral circulation, involution of internal organs whose function eventually has to be sustained artificially or replaced. So in effect it was felt that the species that had the most to lose should have the most say in writing the charter."

"But if they could be wrong about the most basic physiological aspects of joining, why is it so hard to believe that they might have been wrong about the sociological consequences of the rules they set in place? How could they foresee what might change over the next ten, twenty generations?"

"There have been amendments."

"Yes, mostly defining the scope of the various Commission subcommittees that were formed over the years. But for the most part the laws, the structures that bind us, haven't changed." I sensed a new tension in her, heard an increase in both heartrates under my ear. "Lenara, after Torias died, did they tell you anything about Dax's next joining?"

"Curzon? They didn't tell me about him directly, but I heard of it afterward, of course."

"Officially, the record states that Torias' body was maintained in a medical coma until Curzon was approved to be Dax's next host."

Something in her tone set Kahn's and my own heart beating faster. "And unofficially?"

Jadzia took a deep breath. "Unofficially, not long after you visited me in the hospital, Dax was implanted into a composer named Joran Belar. After six months, Joran proved to be insane and Dax was removed. I'm sworn to secrecy about what else I learned when I found out about him, but I can say that all public record of the joining was expunged."

I craned up to look at her. "But how could that happen? How could he possibly have made it through the initiate program and field training and the selection committee hearings if he were insane?"

"Oh, he was brilliant in his own way. Sociopathic, but brilliant. Enough to be able to pass the entire battery of psych evaluations and personality tests. In his case it also helped that they tend to cast a wider net when it comes to selecting hosts for the younger symbionts -– they're not nearly as restrictive in their choice of candidates as they are with the older ones." Gently she coaxed my head back down and laced the fingers of her free hand with mine. "Dax and the other hosts should have been able to keep Joran under control, but I think the truth was that it allowed his mental instability to surface not because of any chemical or psychological imbalance but because it was _grieving_."

Even through my shock her words rang true. Thinking of my experience with Kahn's bereavement, I shuddered. "When Kahn was forcibly separated from Dax, it went into a virtually catatonic state that nearly killed me. I was lucky that my neurotransmitter levels never fluctuated and our bond remained stable, but it took a great deal of intermediating from the senior Guardians to convince Kahn to allow them to heal it."

"Haven't you ever wondered why the Commission asked you to talk with me after the accident?"

"Of course I have. It made no sense at the time, and I still haven't come up with a reasonable explanation."

"Goes against everything we're taught, doesn't it? My theory is that they wanted to blindside you, to horrify and appall you enough that it wouldn't occur to you to apply for the special dispensation granted to bonded symbionts."

I sat up abruptly. Jadzia regarded me with absolute solemnity. "You may be right," I said slowly. "I'd completely forgotten about that."

"I'm pretty sure that was the point." She righted herself in a fluid movement, clasping my hand in hers, her eyes incandescent. "Think of it, Lenara! It's a way we could be together."

It was so easy to lose myself in her gaze, to be swept up in her passion... Mentally I shook myself. "We'd have to live on one of the outlying colonies, never contacting our families again, not even by subspace messaging."

"You haven't yet had the pleasure of meeting my mother," she said dryly.

"And we'd have to give up any say in the choice of hosts for all subsequent joinings."

"What does it matter if you're with me?"

I had an idiotic desire to kiss the tiny furrows that formed between her eyebrows when she frowned; instead I gently pressed the tip of my finger there until she reluctantly smiled, smoothing them out. "Do you remember my telling you about that other joined couple who were also core-bonded, Larina Savarin and Kamalu Tiris?" Jadzia nodded. "When Larina died about twenty years ago, Savarin was joined to a very young male host named Danil. He wanted nothing to do with Kamalu, who by that time was quite elderly; he also resented the fact that he wasn't allowed to seek out his own life, or to leave the colony or even his household. It put quite a strain on Savarin's relationship with Tiris, to the point that the two of them became essentially estranged while still having to live together."

"Then we might as well accept exile." She cupped my cheek; unable to resist, I nuzzled it against her palm and dropped a kiss on her thumb. "Stay here with me. There's a lifetime's worth of study in the wormhole alone. You could carry out your research with all of Starfleet's resources at your disposal."

"And condemn Dax and Kahn." I looked up at her, tears threatening to spill over. "When we die, so do they. The chains of succession will be irrevocably broken, and we will have betrayed everything we have ever known and believed and striven for."

Her hand dropped away, balled into a fist in her lap. "You're missing the point, Lenara. The point isn't just that we die. The point is to _live_, to the fullest extent possible.

"Dax has had eight hosts -– well, technically nine, if you count poor Verad. Kahn's had twenty-two. You tell me: just how many 'new experiences' do you really come across these days? Loves, hates, friendships, deaths. When I hear of an old friend who's died, I'm sad. But I find it increasingly difficult to recall just whose friend it was -– Curzon's, Tobin's, Audrid's -– because he or she fades into that continuum that tells me I have gone through this many times before and I will go through it many times again and in the end one loss is not so very much different from another. And when I think about it, that strikes me as more tragic than anything, to discount another's life simply because it's so much more fleeting than one's own.

"I'm not saying I don't enjoy my life, because I do, thoroughly. I'm just saying that... maybe living out the rest of my days with the person I love, growing old together, dying together... maybe that doesn't sound so bad."

I couldn't tell which of us first realized that Kahn and Dax were no longer connected, or which of them had dissolved the link. I felt abandoned, bereft -– but also paradoxically relieved.

Jadzia stood, her mouth twisting into a crooked smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Guess that answers that."

My voice caught in my thickened throat. "Guess so."

She stared at me intently for a long moment, her expression unreadable. Then, bending over, she kissed me on the forehead, lingering so that I could feel the outline of her mouth. A drop of hot wetness landed just above my eyebrow and wended its way down my face, adding its bitter salt to my lips. It felt like a benediction, like a blessing.

It felt like goodbye.

"I'll see you in the morning," I said, inadequately.

A ghost of a kiss brushed my cheek. "Right." With that, she left, not looking back.

* * *

My eyes fly open. The data equations are still looping continually on the main viewer. I am alone in the transport's laboratory, my colleagues having withdrawn, probably due to a combination of tact and squeamish discomfort at witnessing their team leader on the brink of a full emotional meltdown.

I cannot get the image of her out of my mind: Jadzia, watching for me from the upper level of the Promenade, unbowed but gripping the railing so hard the bones of her hands stand out whitely against the skin.

She had known that I would not stay, and yet she had hoped. And as we exchanged one last glance, I saw that hope die, crushed by awful certainty as Kahn and Dax remained resolutely silent.

_You cannot fundamentally change anyone, least of all yourself_. Dear gods.

The insistent ringing in my ears has been getting louder since we left the station. I wrap my arms tightly about myself, but nothing seems to stop my shivering or the tensing of seemingly every muscle in my body. Reason and focus desert me until at last I begin to weep, mourning not what might have been but rather for what never could have been.

* * *

_2/2/15_ _And that's all she wrote, folks. Well, except for ___the endless bouts of nitpicking (I am a compulsive line-editor) and ____the reworking of a few sections I've never been totally happy with, including this last chapter.  
__

_I started writing this shortly after "Rejoined" aired in October 1995; it proved to be a little too unwieldy and overwhelming for my 20-something-year-old self to handle, so it's been locked away in a figurative drawer since then. Resurrecting it has been an interesting exercise -– there's been the requisite cringing at and ruthless slashing of my overwritten prose, of course, but I've been pleasantly surprised to find the germ of a decent story buried in the whole mess._

_I've perpetrated a few acts of physiology that directly contradict some of the more implausible med/sci-babble TPTB have heaped onto the hapless Trill. Trace Hemenover's __**DS9 Encyclopedia and Lexicon**__ as well **Memory Alpha: The Star Trek Wiki** provided invaluable bits of information I'd either forgotten or never known; any inconsistencies with canon are entirely my fault. Or, in certain cases, entirely deliberate._

_Thanks to everyone who's stuck with me through this. As always, feedback is greatly appreciated!_


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